The recording industry is taking on Napster in court but other file swapping systems are quickly gathering fans and may be much more difficult to shut down.
Even if Napster is forced to closed, a number of other file-swapping programmes exist, including Napigator and Gnutella.
Undeterred, Hollywood is waging a courtroom assault: The MPAA sued Morpheus' and Kazaa's owners in October to halt their file-swapping.
He then proceeded to download The Matrix from Gnutella, a file-swapping site.
The legal battle between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and file-swapping service Napster is due to resume on 2 October.
This was a setback, but the record companies are having more luck trying to hit file-swapping networks in another way: by targeting users directly.
Despite successful efforts by the record companies to police the copying of tracks by some of their bestselling artists, online file-swapping still goes on.
Two popular file-swapping software programs already enable video piracy via PC: Morpheus and Kazaa, which are used mostly to transport songs and grainy reruns of Seinfeld, The Simpsons and South Park.
On April 29th, the Recording Industry Association of America began sending messages to users of file-swapping programs who appear to be offering copyrighted music for download, warning them that they face possible legal action.
On April 24th, another federal judge upheld a ruling in a test case that would require internet-access providers to reveal the identities of subscribers engaging in file-swapping when ordered to do so by a court.
Even with a broadband connection and a sophisticated file-sharing schema like BitTorrent, illegally downloading and swapping movies is far more difficult than trading songs.
Companies that do nothing about file sharing systems could find themselves sued by entertainment industry groups seeking to end the swapping of pirated material.
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