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The music industry is preparing a new wave of lawsuits against the most prolific Internet song-swappers. 

On Tuesday, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said that it will sue 24 individuals in Denmark for trading music files online and that Britain, France and Sweden could be added to the list of target countries. 

"It's inevitable," said Jay Berman, IFPI's chief executive, when asked of the likelihood those countries would be included. He added that Japan, the world's second largest music market, is also a strong candidate for lawsuits as recorded music sales there continue to slide. 

The music industry has already sued 2,947 people in the United States and has announced more than 230 suits in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada. 

"On the strength of the developments in Denmark, Germany and Italy, we can confirm there will be more legal actions in other countries in the near future," Berman said. 

The industry blames the extensive online trade of free music for contributing to a massive slide in recorded music sales. 

A year ago it launched a multi-pronged effort to promote sanctioned online music stores such as Apple Computer's iTunes while suing those who share their music collection with others on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and WinMX. 

Berman said the carrot-and-stick strategy is showing signs of paying off with the number of infringed music files on peer-to-peer sites in decline, and awareness growing among consumers that file sharing is a criminal activity. 

The number of infringing music files available on file-sharing networks fell to 700 million this month, down 30 percent from the all-time peak of 1 billion in June 2003, the trade group said. 

And according to an IFPI survey, 70 percent of those polled in France, Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom are aware that the unauthorized trade of copyrighted music is illegal. 

The IFPI said it scored a recent victory in the German courts against a 23-year-old man caught with a collection of 6,000 pirated MP3 files on his computer hard drive and 70 CDs containing further files. The man agreed to pay $9,855 (8,000 euros) in compensation. 

In Italy, 30 individuals charged by a public prosecutor with copyright infringement are awaiting trial. And 88 people in Denmark have either paid or agreed to pay compensation averaging $3,700 each for file sharing. Another 23 Danes are negotiating levels of compensation, the IFPI said.