Online Song Swappers Being Sued

(CBS/AP)  The recording industry was filing hundreds of lawsuits Monday against individual music lovers whom music companies accuse of illegally downloading and sharing songs over the Internet, a music industry source said.

The lawsuits, being filed in federal courts around the country, had been expected, as the industry has become increasingly aggressive in cracking down on the trading of pirated music files online. The source spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Recording Industry Association of America was filing 261 lawsuits on behalf of its members, which include Universal Music Group, BMG, EMI, Sony Music and Warner Music, the industry source said.

The music industry says file-sharing is a violation of copyright laws and blames the practice for a 31 percent decline in compact disc music sales in the last three years.

"It's a perfectly legal, legitimate way for music companies to try to protect their copyrights, and it is likely to have a chilling effect on those computer users who illegally download a lot of music," reports CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen. "The industry may never be able to stop all of this, but it may stop enough to make a difference, and I think that's why it has targeted the individuals it has."

The recording industry announced in June that it would target hundreds of individual computer users who illegally share music files, an aggressive gamble to cripple online piracy by suing fans.

The announcement came just weeks after U.S. appeals court rulings requiring Internet providers to readily identify subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music and movie files.

Earlier, the recording industry association sued four college students it accused of making thousands of songs available for illegal downloading on campus networks. The group settled those cases for $12,500 to $17,000 each.

Monday's lawsuits resulted from subpoenas sent to Internet service providers and others seeking to identify roughly 1,600 people the group believes engaged in illegal music sharing.

"It's hard to find a needle in a haystack unless you know precisely where to look, and that's what this earlier ruling gave to the music companies, which now are aggressively defending their copyrights," reports Cohen. "The industry did its homework, identified certain people it believes are illegally downloading music, and is going after those people in the hopes that thousands of other people who also may be doing this may think twice."

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has promised hearings on the industry's use of copyright subpoenas to track downloaders.

Coleman has expressed concerns that the campaign could ensnare innocent people, such as parents and grandparents whose children and grandchildren are using their computers to download music. He also said some downloaders themselves might not know they are breaking the law.

U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person's computer, but the industry group has said it would be open to settlement proposals from defendants.