if you pay for the download.

A French teacher was yesterday fined €10,200 ($13,300) in France's first major illegal file-sharing prosecution.

Alain Oddoz, 28, was arrested on 18 August 2004 following an investigation into music-sharing information site France Barter by French law enforcement agencies. The teacher, one of 302 regular users of the site, was accused of sharing 30GB of music files, Le Monde reports.

The teacher will have to pay €3,000 now, with the rest deferred to a later date. The fine could have been much worse. Music industry representatives had asked the Pontoise court to impose a €28,366 fine.

"I do not have any idea how to pay - it is a sum which I do not have," Oddoz told the Court.

However, he must take out a series of newspaper adverts to publicise the crime and punishment. His computer equipment was also confiscated.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) continued its hard line approach to music sharing across P2P networks with a round of copyright infringement lawsuits targeting 761 alleged illegal file sharers.

As with the organisation's previous legal putsches, the campaign focused on illegal file sharing on college campuses.

Twenty-five of the lawsuits brought by the RIAA on behalf of the major record companies were against individuals using a university internet connection to allegedly distribute music files on unauthorised P2P services, including eDonkey, Limewire and Kazaa.

The entertainment industry yesterday scored a landmark victory in its effort to crack down on the illegal file-sharing of music and films.
In a ruling that could spell the end for the "peer-to-peer" networks that have flourished online, the United States supreme court said software makers can be held liable for enabling computer users to copy protected work without permission.

Tens of millions of people around the world use peer-to-peer networks such as Grokster and Morpheus to copy music and films for free from other computer users' hard drives. Compact disc sales have fallen by around 25% since 1999 when the first generation of file-sharing networks emerged.

Warner Music chief executive Edgar Bronfman hailed the ruling as an "important decision".

With no other legal avenues open, the entertainment industry has in recent years pursued individual users, filing hundreds of lawsuits and hoping that the fear of litigation might stem copyright abuse. Those suits though, against children as young as 12, have generated a tide of negative publicity for the business.

peer 2 peer is just the same as downloading mate, still illegal,

its only legal if you have the owners permission or if you pay for the download.