Hot on the heels of the Australian ruling against Kazaa, the peer-to-peer file-sharing service, comes yet another decree against piracy from the music industry.

The Music Publishers' Association (MPA), representing US sheet music companies, announced late last week that it is planning on taking strong action against offenders involved in the publication of copyright lyrics, scores or guitar tabs.

Lauren Keiser, president, MPA, said that Internet has replaced the Xerox machine in usurping sales, prompting a more pro-active approach. Expressing the view that he did not want to just shut-down the concerned Web sites, Keiser said that if authorities could "throw in some jail time" it would be more effective.

In the past bitter battles have been waged against un-authorised services allowing users to download recordings for free, however this is the first concerted legal effort by the MPA in this direction.

The MPA plans to target even very big sites, that people would otherwise think are legitimate and popular. Music publishers and song-writers will consider all tools under the law, to stop illegal behaviour of certain Web sites.

Interestingly the campaign comes in the wake of Austrian freeware Web site - PearWorks closing its PearLyrics service in response to a "cease and desist" letter from leading music publishing company, Warner/Chappell Music. PearLyrics worked along with Apple Computer's iTunes, searching the internet to find lyrics for songs in a user's collection.

Walter Ritter, developer, PearLyrics, said he just didn't see the point why PearLyrics would infringe Warner/Chappell's copyright because all PearLyrics was doing was searching publicly-available Web sites. Ritter said that he had closed the service only because he could not afford to risk a law suit against such a big company.

Ritter said that he had tried convincing Warner/Chappell that its cease and desist letter might just be based on a big mis-conception regarding what PearLyrics was all about; however he had received no response from the company.

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