The Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) has voiced its support for a US-sourced brochure set to go out to companies that warns of the dangers of Internet piracy and urging them to crack down on work-place copyright infringement.

In a joint move the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) are distributing the brochure to hundreds of corporations around the world, threatening legal action should copyright be infringed in the workplace.

"Unfortunately, employees of companies and other organisations sometimes use their employers' computer systems to engage in unauthorised copying of music, movies and other copyrighted material," says an attached letter jointly signed by RIAA Chief Executive Hilary Rosen and MPAA Chief Executive Jack Valenti. "Such activities on your systems can put your organisation at legal risk, tarnish your organisation's reputation and increase security risks for your computer systems."

ARIA spokesperson Stephen Peach informed ZDNet Australia   that the organisation had no plans to follow suit at this stage. however he said the group would be following the progress of the approach taken by its US counterparts.

"We [ARIA] are supportive of initiatives that are designed to increase the awareness and understanding of copyright infringement and we will certainly be looking at the appropriateness of such a model for use in Australia," Peach said.

As they pursue file-trading software companies such as Sharman Networks in court, the big copyright-holder trade associations are increasingly trying to stem Net piracy at its source. Late in 2002, the US organisations sent similar letters to Fortune 500 executives and legal counsels at universities around the country, warning them that their high-speed networks could be used for piracy.

In addition, the record industry is in court seeking the right to subpoena Internet service providers directly for the names of subscribers who are trading files illegally online. Verizon Communications is fighting this request in federal court, saying the request violates the privacy of its customers.

The new brochure contains one of the starkest warnings yet that businesses face legal liability for their employees' actions. The RIAA has already struck a US$1 million settlement with one company in which employees were widely sharing music files on an internal network, and the document makes it clear that other businesses could be targeted if similar activities are found.

"When your employees put music, movies, videogames or other software on your computer systems without a license or other permission from the copyright owner, it is not 'sharing' or 'fair use.' It is theft," the brochure reads. "When these works are made available to others in your organisation, or to the public over the Internet, it is no different than running an illegal distribution business."

The brochure exhorts companies to audit their own networks for pirated material, delete any copyrighted works found, and designate a copyright-compliance officer.

It also turns the spotlight on the drain on corporate resources and on the security problems raised by employees trading copyrighted files. Corporate security companies say these concerns in particular have been resonating among businesses in recent months.

Pete Cafarchio, vice president of business development for Pest Patrol, says the security company's corporate clients have increasingly been interested in eradicating any unauthorised applications that are using network resources or--more importantly--sending data of any kind outside the corporate firewall. Many free file-swapping programs are distributed along with advertising software that collects user information and sends it back to the parent company's servers.

"Business customers' argument is that there should be no unauthorised (network) communication," Cafarchio said. "Bandwidth and resource consumption is the real driver for them."

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