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As before, the RIAA has initiated John Doe lawsuits in which the sued individuals are known only by their IP addresses and the times and dates that they were online. ISPs will then be asked to identify the individuals concerned.

Among those facing lawsuits are users of 11 college networks across the US.

'Even while we work to hold accountable the businesses that encourage and profit from illegal file sharing, it's critical to simultaneously send a strong message that the individual users of these pirate networks can be caught and face the consequences,'

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said RIAA president Cindy Sherman. 'The lawsuits are a critical deterrent. They have helped arrest the extraordinary growth of illicit p2p use.'

Sherman added that she is encouraged by a new report from market research consultancy Ipsos-Insight. The report shows that in December 2004 47 per cent of US downloaders aged over 12 said that they have paid to download a song, up from 22 per cent a year before.

It also found that illegal sharing continues to gradually decline and as many people are now buying music online as downloading it from illegitimate sources.

'This marks a potential turning point in the evolution of digital music, as the proportion of Americans using file-sharing services and fee-based services has intersected for the first time,'said Matt Kleinschmit, vice president at Ipsos-Insight. 'This is significant both functionally and symbolically, as operators of fee-based digital music websites are finally seeing American downloaders embrace their services, and the broader industry can now see empirical evidence that fee-based online content can survive and even flourish while non-licensed content remains available.'