Some of the world"s largest record labels are quietly financing the creation of programs by small software firms that, if deployed, would sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people who download pirated music, according to a published report. Citing industry executives, The New York Times reported in an article that appeared on its Web site on Saturday, that the efforts bear varying degrees of legality including attacking a computer"s Internet connection to slow or halt downloads and overwhelming distribution networks with programs that masquerade as music files.
"There are a lot of things you can do--some quite nasty," the Times quoted Marc Morgenstern, chief executive of software company Overpeer, as saying. The company receives support from several large media companies, it said. If large record labels roll out the programs, it would be the most aggressive tactic yet in the music piracy wars by the recording industry, which has claimed that music piracy costs it more than $4 billion in annual sales worldwide.
Last month a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that file-sharing services Grokster and Morpheus were not guilty of copyright infringement. The Times said approaches under development range from relatively modest in degree to quite severe. One method is a "Trojan horse" program that simply redirects users to Web sites where they can legitimately buy the songs they had tried to download.