"It's a tremendous result and represents a turning point," said Michael Speck, general manager of the Australian music industry's piracy investigations unit, which played a major role in the case. "It's a clear message to Internet pirates that they can no longer hide behind the mythology of the Internet. It's now revealed as nothing more than another form of theft," Speck said.

The industry estimates the value of albums downloaded by Web surfers worldwide was between $37 million and $44 million. The site consisted of a series of mirrors, which are replicas of original sites. One of the mirror sites alone had 7 million hits in the past 12 months.