It was a very busy day in the pop courts yesterday. First, our good good friends, the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry, announced it was launching more of those anti-file sharing lawsuits, this time against no less than 8000 suspected file sharers in 17 different countries. The lawsuits will target people who allegedly upload large amounts of copyright music to P2P networks like eDonkey, SoulSeek and WinMX.
The latest set of litigation sees the industry association's long running legal campaign against file sharing reach Brazil, Mexico and Poland for the first time. The industry association also admitted that some of their legal action would hit parents whose children had been sharing music online, but said that those parents should accept responsibility for monitoring the use of the internet by their families (though that is a viewpoint that has been disputed in the US courts, with some success).
Confirming the latest legal assault, IFPI chief John Kennedy told reporters: "In each of the 17 countries involved in today's actions there are legal music services available to consumers. There is no excuse. People should understand that they can be caught whatever network they are using. The next time a series of lawsuits are announced you could be on the receiving end if you are an illegal file-sharer."