The Danish Anti Pirat Gruppen (Anti Piracy Group) is to continue targeting Net users who swap copyright material illegally.

Confirmation that the APG is to continue its hard line comes after it issued invoices totalling 1m Danish Crowns (£86,200) to around 150 users of KaZaA and eDonkey for allegedly illegally swapping copyright material.

The biggest offenders face bills of around 100,000 Crowns (£8,600).

According to Morten Lindegaard, a lawyer for APG, around 80 per cent of those who received the invoices have already agreed to pay up. Those that don't face being sued.

"Most were surprised that we were able to discover them," Mr Lindegaard told The Register.

And in a clear warning to Danish Net users, he insisted that APG would continue to pursue this approach to crackdown on copyright infringements.

"If we can stop people sharing [music and video files] we should be able to solve the problem," he said.

At the moment the APG is targeting people who are offering music and films -for free - for other people to download. It has no plans at the moment to target end-users.

No doubt this approach will be viewed as a means of "scaring" some people from obtaining material illegally.

Indeed, only last week an intellectual property lawyer who works with the Federation against Software Theft (FAST) suggested that action against end-users will "increasingly be the only way to break a widespread habit" of copyright theft.

So could Net users in the UK face similar tactics as being carried out in Denmark?

A spokesman for the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) - which works to combat music piracy, among other things - said that it has no plans at present to follow APG's approach to combating the illegal downloading of music.

"But we wouldn't rule it out," he said. ®

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