LOS ANGELES, Aug. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- In its latest wave of crackdown on music piracy, major US record companies have sued 744more people for illegally downloading copyrighted music from file-sharing networks, the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA)said Wednesday.

    Meanwhile, the RIAA refiled lawsuits against 152 people who were previously sued anonymously but later identified and offered the chance to settle, after they ignored or declined those offers, a RIAA spokesman said.

    The 744 defendants' identities remained unknown, but the RIAA filed the lawsuits according to the so-called "John Doe" litigation process, which is used to sue unidentified defendants.

    The 744 people reportedly used a variety of peer-to-peer services including Kazaa, eDonkey and Grokster Ltd.

    This was the first time that eDonkey users were sued, and RIAA President Cary Sherman called it an attempt to respond to "changing circumstances" in the file-sharing world. "Without a strong measure of deterrence, piracy will overwhelm and choke the creation and distribution of music," he said.

    So far, the RIAA has sued nearly 4,700 people since last September in its relentless legal campaign to crack down on music piracy, which it blames for the decline of CD sales that costs themusic industry billions of dollars.

    Last week, a federal appeals court held that makers of file-sharing software could not be held liable for certain kinds of copyright infringement, dealing a blow to efforts by the RIAA to tackle piracy at the source.

    Meanwhile, peer-to-peer vendors continue to decry the RIAA tactics, calling them "unproductive." Instead of suing music fans,the RIAA should negotiate a way to pay artists with peer-to-peer vendors, said Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United, a trade group representing five peer-to-peer vendors, including Grokster and eDonkey.

    "The fact that the RIAA has the right to bring these lawsuits doesn't make them the right thing to do," Eisgrau said. Enditem