WASHINGTON — This fall Congress may join the battle to stop millions of Americans from downloading free music on the Web, but recording industry observers doubt lawmakers can break the public from its illegal habit.

"I think it may be way too late for anything legislative to make a big difference," said John Hedtke, author of "MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution."

The battle to stop music downloading has been playing out in court for years. But the legal push intensified in June when the Recording Industry Association of America filed more than 1,000 subpoenas against Internet service providers such as Verizon and SBC Communications and colleges such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The music industry wants Internet service providers and colleges to turn over the identities of customers or students who download or make available huge amounts of copyright hits from artists such as rapper Eminem.

Last Monday, RIAA filed the first round of about 250 lawsuits against computer users who share a "substantial" amount of pirated music online — on average about 1,000 songs. However, industry officials said they would not sue people who voluntarily identify themselves and promise not to share more free music on the Web.

Computer users hit with lawsuits could face fines of $150,000 and up to 10 years in jail for each downloaded song. However, the recording industry this year accepted settlements of less than $20,000 each from college students accused of trading copyright songs on the Web.

Lawmakers also have introduced bills that would give the music industry more ammunition to go after illegal music sharing.

The music industry claims Internet piracy has severely cut into profits and endangered entertainment industry jobs. Revenues from music sales dropped to $12.6 billion in 2002 from $14.6 billion in 1999 because of rampant stealing on the Web, RIAA said.

Commercial losses

Computer users now download more than 2.6 billion free copyright music files a month instead of buying CDs at their local Sam Goody or Tower Records, RIAA said.

"Music fans cannot expect their favorite musicians to continue to produce quality albums if they are not willing to pay," said Grammy award-winning rock singer Sheryl Crow.

Still, fans of free online music, many of whom are teenagers, college students or young adults, are miffed that the music industry is trying to interfere with consumers' right to computer privacy.

Some are fighting back

Several Web sites offer tips to avoid getting hit with a recording industry subpoena. Some computer users are installing software to block music industry investigators from recording their computer screen alias or Internet provider address. Others are burrowing deeper into cyberspace, opting to trade digital music files through smaller, harder-to-detect Internet file-sharing clubs, or "newsgroups," instead of using popular software such as KaZaA.

"I think their tactics are strong- armed," Clifton Farr, 27, a technology consultant from Liberty, Mo., said of the music industry's subpoenas. "I hate to see a precedent open up where they can come into your computer."

At least one lawmaker said Farr could be right. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said the music industry may be abusing its right to protect copyright songs under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by aggressively going after the identities of music file sharers.

In August, RIAA president Cary Sherman assured Coleman in a letter that the industry was only going after music downloaders who share large amounts of copyright songs on the Web — not "nominal" offenders. But RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy refused to say how many songs a computer user must download before he or she is targeted.

Coleman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs permanent investigations subcommittee, will have hearings starting this month to examine the RIAA subpoenas and try to find a solution to the music piracy problem.

"You have to live in a cave not to know this is a huge issue today, particularly if you're the parent of a 13- or 17-year-old," Coleman said last month.

Experts see piracy continuing

Congress likely cannot devise a bill that would halt illegal downloading, experts said. Threatening more criminal action against people who download music also may not work because the public is used to getting free music on the Web, said Bruce Haring, author of "Beyond the Charts: MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution."

"What they are trying to change is human behavior, which is also difficult, if not impossible," Haring said.

Eventually, someone will create music-sharing software that is so well encrypted that the recording industry will not be able to figure out who is swapping songs, said Russ Crupnick, an analyst at NPD Group in Port Washington, N.Y., who tracks Internet music downloads.

And Cindy Cohn and Fred von Lohmann, lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, said 250 million people worldwide are using music file-sharing software. So even if the

60 million Americans who have downloaded music are stopped, the free music party on the Web will keep going, said Cohn, whose organization gives advice to people who are subpoenaed.