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The collective association for Hollywood studios is expected to change tack and begin pursuing individuals suspected of swapping unauthorised material over peer-to-peer networks, as opposed to its previous pursuit of organised pirates.

It's not the first time MPAA has brought legal cases against online distribution. As well as the battle with 321 Studios - a company that made DVD-X Copy and DVD Copy Plus and was sued by the studios on the grounds that the products assisted piracy - the Association teamed up with the FBI at the start of the year to fight online pirates. The anticipated move against individuals,

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however, is seen as an escalation of the MPAA's legal attack.

The music industry equivalent of the MPAA - the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) - has long pursued an aggressive litigious approach. Only last month - US Recording Industry goes on the legal attack - RIAA launched a further 762 law suits against users of file-sharing networks suspected of trading copyrighted music.

Note that RIAA, and the BPI, have actually pursued those who make the unauthorised copies available for others, rather than those who just download the copyrighted material, per se (though this distinction is not always clear cut on some P2P networks, where the download folder would typically be available anyway for other users to access).

The MPAA, incidentally, has previously forecast 2005 as the year by which Hollywood films could be legally available over the Internet before being released on DVD or VHS. According to the former CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, speaking at the end of last year, talks with Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard were taking place to find ways of securely delivering films over the Internet - Films online by 2005.