A federal magistrate judge has given the legal green light to a consortium of music companies to subpoena a Utah County Internet company to identify four individuals being sued for music piracy.

In an order issued Thursday, U.S. District Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells approved a request by the music industry to conduct immediate discovery to identify the names, addresses and phone numbers of four customers, possibly in Utah County.

In a suit filed last week, one of the first of its kind in Utah, the defendants are only identified by their IP or Internet Protocol address. The companies are suing the four for music piracy, claiming they had downloaded possibly hundreds of pirated music files off of a peer-to-peer file-sharing network.

The IP addresses listed in the suit are associated with Provo-based Internet service company Veracity Communications.

In her order, Wells said the company would have an opportunity to contest the subpoena for the information. However, Veracity vice president Mike Jasper said it's his company's position that their customers should not download pirated music and they plan to cooperate with the industry's request for customer information.

The companies in the suit, Warner Bros. Records, Virgin Records America, UMG Recordings, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Priority Records, Capitol Records, BMG Music and Arista Records, claim an estimated 2.6 billion pirated music files are downloaded monthly.

The suit is just the latest in a legal campaign the music industry is waging against individuals. News reports have estimated the industry has filed more than 18,000 suits against people across the country.

The industry is seeking an injunction against the four Utah defendants from downloading pirated music, plus attorney fees and damages for each music file downloaded.

---

E-mail: gfattah@desnews.com