Yesterday's Napster ruling by an appeals court shows US courts are more than ready to enforce copyright laws in cyberspace.
The Napster website allows users to swap digital copies of songs, the rights of which are mostly owned by record companies.
The site registers more than 60 million users swapping as many as 10,000 files per second, according to court records.
Napster chief Mr Hank Barry said their opponents "landed a body blow" with yesterday's decision.
The record company's trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), hailed the decision as a victory.
But while both sides prepared for another round, legal experts say yesterday's ruling shows the courts are more than happy to apply existing legal doctrine to the "Wild West" of the Internet.
The site was sued for copyright infringement by major record companies, including A and M Records, Sony Music Entertainment, MCA Records, Capitol Records and Motown.
Yesterday the US appeals court found Napster was infringing copyrights. The court ordered a lower court to reissue a preliminary injunction barring the site from swapping copyrighted material.
AFP