Three of the lawsuits have been filed in U.S. District Court in White Plains. One names a Suffern woman, Enid Biernesser, as a defendant, accusing her of illegally downloading copyrighted songs online.
Another lawsuit names Joseph Tocco Jr. of Yonkers, charging him with the same copyright infringements. Biernesser did not return calls seeking comment. Tocco, who said he was not aware he had been sued, declined to comment. Record companies have now filed about 16,350 federal lawsuits against individual Internet users since September 2003, when the Recording Industry Association of America, an umbrella group that represents the record companies, announced the start of the legal campaign to stem the tide of online music sharing.
The recording industry calls file sharing piracy and says it is a threat to the survival of the recording business.
