France’s recording industry (which goes by the snappy acronym SNEP) has announced that it will follow the lead of the American and British industries and begin suing consumers who illegally download and share music online. In recent days, an international recording federation sued 247 people in Italy, Germany, Canada, and Denmark, and the U.S.-based RIAA has sued more than a thousand file-swappers over the past year. The decision by French companies to jump into the fray is significant, because “French law does not offer the same levels of protection to copyright holders as British and American laws afford.”