The music industry pledged this week to fight on with its global legal battle to stifle online copyright abuse despite last week's unexpected setback in a U.S. court.

U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson on Friday dealt a major blow to the major music labels and Hollywood studios in their fight against online piracy, ruling Internet file-sharing services Grokster and Morpheus can remain open for business.

Judge Wilson ruled Grokster and Morpheus could not be shut down because they cannot control what is traded over their systems even if the material exchanged is copyright-protected.

In contrast, the original song-trading network Napster was shut down by a U.S. federal court judge two years ago as its older technology hosted a central index of copyrighted files.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), had sought a court injunction to shut down Grokster, Morpheus and a third party, Kazaa, for operating services that allow Internet users to trade all types of copyright-protected materials.

The trade groups represent the film- and music-making divisions of AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Bertelsmann AG and Sony Corp, to name a few.

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