Approximately three weeks before the release of the Strokes' third album First Impressions Of Earth, pirated mp3s appeared on the Internet. While computer savvy music fans rejoiced, the RIAA seethed. This week the music industry sent a shot across the downloaders' bow when prosecutors in Washington D.C. obtained four separate guilty pleas on copyright infringement charges involving the online distribution of pirated new releases in advance of the general release date. The four defendants were involved with the "Apocalypse Crew" and "Chromance," two leading prerelease groups.

"The illegal prerelease distribution of albums or individual tracks takes an especially heavy toll on the music community," says RIAA VP Brad Buckles. "After months or even years working on an album, prerelease theft undercuts the ability of artists to sell their music before it even hits the market."

Derek Borchardt of Charlotte, N.C., Matthew Howard of Longmont, CO, Aaron Jones of Hillsboro, OR and George Hayes of Danville, VA, were all arrested as part of Operation Fastlink, an anti-piracy task force targeting the organized operations responsible for the lion's share of online illegally distributed movies, software and music.

While Operation Fastlink's efforts here resulted in the convictions of four individuals responsible for distributing music before its commercial release, those who actually leaked the prerelease copies were left unscathed. Certainly, if music industry insiders and others who receive advance copies of new CDs refrained from supplying them to the prerelease groups, they would not appear on the Internet long before the scheduled "drop date."