LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday said it sent out subpoenas to Internet service providers as it prepares to sue hundreds of individuals who illegally distribute songs over the Web.
"This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Filing information subpoenas is exactly what we said we'd do a couple of weeks ago when we announced that we were gathering evidence to file lawsuits," said a spokeswoman for the RIAA, the music recording industry's leading trade body.
Sharply escalating the industry's battle against online piracy, which had so far focused on shutting down peer-to-peer services themselves, the trade group in late June said it would track down the heaviest users of these services and sue them.
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ISPs are required to provide copyright holders with such information when there is a good-faith reason to believe their copyrights are being infringed, according to lawyers for the RIAA.
The trade group said it will probably file several hundred lawsuits this summer.
ISP EarthLink said it has received three subpoenas from the RIAA since the group pledged to track sites like Kazaa for heavy users.
RIAA last month said the time was right to go after individual users because a recent U.S. court ruling made it easier to track down copyright violators.
A federal court ordered Verizon Communications to reveal names of suspected song-swappers in April, prompting the Internet service provider to ask a higher court to stay the order while it appeals the case.
On June 4, the U.S Court of Appeals in Washington declined to suspend the order, allowing RIAA investigators to easily obtain the names of other Internet users it suspects of trading music illegally.
David Blumenthal, a spokesman for EarthLink, said the company had received three subpoenas in recent weeks asking the company to identify individuals.
"It is our intention to do so, based on the ruling on June 4," said Blumenthal. But, he added, "we disagree with the method that is being used here and while we support the right of them to enforce copyrights, we think this is the wrong method for doing so."
"We're urging the RIAA and other copyright holders to find a less intrusive method for protecting their intellectual property," he said.
The RIAA is the trade group for the world's major record labels include AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music, Bertelsmann AG's BMG Entertainment, EMI Group Plc EMI Recorded Music, Sony Corp's Sony Music and Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group.
