Some people may well be intimidated by the 261 lawsuits that the music industry has filed against Internet users it says are illegally sharing songs.
But hundreds of software developers are racing to create new systems, or modify existing ones, to let people continue to swap music -- hidden from the prying eyes of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), or from any other investigators.
"With the RIAA trying to scare users around the world, the developer community is pumping up to create networks which are safer and more anonymous," said Pablo Soto, a developer in Madrid who designed the software for two file-sharing systems, Blubster and Piolet.
Some experts wonder if the industry's efforts will create more trouble for it than ever. "The RIAA is breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria," said Clay Shirky, a software developer who teaches new media at New York University.
Blubster, which has an estimated quarter-million users, already uses technology to make eavesdropping more difficult, Soto said. Its next version will encrypt files so they can be decoded only by their intended user.
Other systems are sending files on more circuitous Internet routes instead of, or in addition to, using encryption. And some developers hope to replace the current systems, which connect millions of users, with private file-sharing networks -- speakeasies that may be too small for the industry to find.
The developers of the new systems say there is nothing illegal about writing software that helps people keep secrets. US courts have held that file-sharing software may not be banned if it has both legitimate and illegal uses.
The Recording Industry Association of America has said that it is unconcerned about the increasing anonymity of file sharing. The stated purpose of its lawsuits is not to catch every hard core music pirate, but to show millions of casual file sharers that what they are doing is illegal.
In addition, none of the new methods offers perfect anonymity, experts say. Yet many of the new systems are likely to make the recording industry work harder to find file traders.
Private file sharing stems from academic work on encryption and data security over the last decade. One system is Freenet, introduced in 1999 by Ian Clarke. It allows people to publish files to be used by others, with technology meant to keep the source anonymous.
"Everyone said the Internet was an anarchistic thing through which anyone could say anything," Clarke said. "But in reality it is incredibly easy to monitor what is going on on the Internet. I was interested in creating a system that would preserve anonymity."
Freenet is similar to other file-sharing services in that users make part of their hard drives available to hold content to be downloaded by other users. But all the files are encrypted so no one knows what files are on a given machine. Requests to download a file are also encrypted.
Freenet has been a way to disseminate banned political tracts and has been used by people who want to share illegal content like child pornography. Clarke says he is willing to help people send files illegally if he can also prevent political censorship. "I am an absolutist on free speech," he said.
Freenet, however, is slow and hard to use, and it requires knowing a specific file name. As a result, it has not been a viable alternative to music-sharing services like KaZaA. Developers in Germany are creating a program called Frost meant to make Freenet easier to use.
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