With Napster appearing nearly vanquished, the music industry has turned its legal wrath upon a new, but familiar-looking, target: the upstart file-sharing program called Aimster.

Citing the availability of songs by Britney Spears, 'NSYNC, Eminem and dozens of other artists via Aimster, the world's largest record labels filed a copyright infringement lawsuit Thursday against the service's parent company, which they allege has created "a new haven for massive music piracy on the Internet."

As in the music industry's December 1999 lawsuit against Napster, which led to a preliminary injunction that has forced the file-sharing service to screen out copyrighted music, the suit against Aimster asks a Manhattan court to stop what it alleges to be the facilitation of copyright infringement on the service.

Aimster was introduced in August as a service that allowed users to piggy-back on America Online's Instant Messenger program, trading files only to those users who were on their "buddy lists." But the current version of the program simply allows users to search the hard drives of other users for files and then download them.

Unlike Napster, Aimster is not restricted to music files. Company founder Johnny Deep said on Thursday (May 24) that Aimster is primarily meant to help small businesses create private networks in order to trade files for work purposes.

Lawyer George Carpinello, who represents Aimster along with superstar attorney David Boies, argued that because Aimster is not limited to music files, and because it encrypts data within its system, the company is not responsible for any copyright infringement. Carpinello declined to comment on comparisons between Aimster and Napster because his firm also represents Napster.

But Recording Industry Association of America general counsel Cary Sherman said in a statement that there's no difference between the services. "Aimster is Napster all over again," he said. "Beneath the added bells and whistles lies the same service that Napster provides."

Aimster's lawyers filed their own suit against the RIAA last month, asking a judge in Albany, New York, to preemptively declare that Aimster does not violate copyright law

The judge in the Albany case has put Thursday's lawsuit on hold until next week, when he will rule on the proper forum for the suits, according to lawyers on both sides.

Meanwhile, Aimster is also fighting another battle — they're appealing an arbitration panel's recent ruling that the Aimster.com Web site's domain name infringes upon America Online's trademark for its Instant Messenger service, also known as AIM.

When introducing Aimster last year, Deep implied that the service was named after AOL's program, but he's since said that it was named after his teenage daughter, Madeline "Aimee" Deep. Pin-up pictures of his daughter adorn Aimster's Web site, which also hosts a Madeline Deep fan club.

(For complete coverage of the Napster saga, check out MTV News' [article id="1441231"]"Napster Files."[/article])