It comes in the wake of attempts by the industry to prosecute companies such as EasyGroup, owner of the EasyInternetcafe chain, for allowing music to be downloaded via file-swapping services including Kazaa and Grokster.
The Recording Industry Association of America is planning to file lawsuits against individuals who are found to be swapping music over the internet. It follows a decision by US courts to force the US telecoms firm Verizon to disclose the names of subscribers who, according to the RIAA, were trading copyrighted music.
Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, said: "The law is clear and the message to those who are distributing substantial quantities of music online should be equally clear -- this activity is illegal, you are not anonymous when you do it, and engaging in it can have real consequences."
He added: "We'd much rather spend time making music then dealing with legal issues in courtrooms. But we can not stand by while piracy takes a devastating toll on artists, musicians, songwriters, retailers and everyone in the music industry."
The campaign has the support of some high-profile musicians, including Richard Carpenter, surviving half of The Carpenters; rap singer and producer Missy Elliott; and Craig Nicholls, front man of the rock group The Vines. Nicholls said: "If you like our music, great, at least buy a copy before you burn one."
At the same time as prosecuting people and companies for illegal file-swapping, the industry is attempting to turn the popularity of online music downloading into profits by uniting record companies to sell legitimate downloads.
Apple recently opened a music site, that allows users to download tracks starting at 99 cents each. At launch, it had a bank of 200,000 tracks for users to choose from, although at the moment, the service can only be used by Mac owners in the US.
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