China-based Free Downloads Site Blocked

NEW YORK (Top40-Charts) - A group of record companies have asked a New York judge to block access by Americans to a China-based web site that allows free downloads of copyrighted songs.

Record labels including Sony Music Entertainment, the Universal Music Group and RCA Records filed the suit Friday in Federal District Court in Manhattan to block access to Listen4ever.com, the New York Times reported.

The site is "even more egregious" than Napster, the music exchange web site that was shut down by court order, according to court papers.

The suit, citing the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, seeks to compel Internet service providers AT&T Broadband, Cable and Wireless, the Sprint Corporation and UUNet Technologies to block access to the site from the United States.

Access to the site was apparently blocked by some providers Saturday night.

A spokeswoman for AT&T Broadband, Sarah Edler, told the Times that the company had never before been asked to block access to a foreign site.

The record labels say the free music site's domain name is registered to a person in Tianjin, China, located east of Beijing.

Sites set up in countries that do not enforce United States copyright law, which offer free downloads of thousands of songs and movies, are a growing problem for the entertainment industry.