The music industry is back on the offensive, going after online piracy.
Overnight, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents the world's music companies, in 17 countries around the world.
illegally downloaded last year in Brazil, the largest market in Latin America.
Record company revenue has nearly halved in Brazil since 2000, IFPI said. IFPI has said some 20 billion songs were illegally downloaded worldwide last year.
The industry has now filed about 18,000 lawsuits in the United States, the largest market for music sales, and 13,000 in the rest of the world.
Separately, Universal Music Group is suing the operators of two video-sharing websites, claiming they illegally let users share music videos and other copyright material without permission.
Universal Music, the world's largest recording company, filed separate lawsuits against Grouper Networks Inc, operator of Grouper.com, and Bolt Inc, which runs Bolt.
com.
Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures Entertainment acquired Grouper for $US65 million in August, and Universal Music said it may add the film studio as a defendant.
Video sites have become wildly popular over the past year, week, Google agreed to buy one of the top such sites, YouTube, for with YouTube. The recording company said it sought licensing deals with both Grouper and Bolt, but reached agreements with neither.
In lawsuits filed Monday in US District Court in Los Angeles, violating copyright laws by "copying, reformatting, distributing the label.
In one example cited in the Grouper lawsuit, a search turned up several Mariah Carey videos that could be viewed and downloaded. A 50,000 times, the lawsuit said.
Mary J.
Blige, including the video for Enough Cryin, which had been viewed more than 1000 times, the lawsuit said.
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