Digital File Check is a simple educational tool that aims to guide computer users, many of whom might be new to the world of online music. Digital File Check helps to show how they, or their families, colleagues and friends, can enjoy music and film legally and responsibly without risking legal action by copyright holders.

Digital File Check helps to remove or block any of the unwanted “file-sharing” programmes commonly used to distribute copyrighted files illegally. It also allows the user to delete copyrighted music and video files from the “shared folders” of the computer from where they are commonly swapped illegally on the internet.

As Boing Boing points out in the link to the article, I wonder if they delete your IM clients, e-mail programs, and web-browsers. It cracks me up that people are suing file-sharing network companies. If you think about it rationally for more than eight seconds, the idea is so ridiculous that only a moron could buy into it.

The idea is that you sue the network operators for the content being exchanged on their networks, the idea being that since a crime is being committed with a perfectly legal application, it must therefore be illegal and regulated. Now imagine if someone were to sue GM because their cars were used in the commission of a crime.

Ridiculous? Sure. But it’s the same thing.

People who steal music should be prosecuted. The punishment should fit the crime. And the music industry should not be acting as a vigilante law enforcement entity. It really is that simple.

Source: IFPI via Boing Boing