WASHINGTON, Oct 19: A US court has ordered a Web site that bills itself as ‘Napster’s Number One Replacement Software’ to stop promising customers that they won’t face copyright lawsuits when they download songs for free, the Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday.

MP3DownloadCity.com sells a tutorial service that tells consumers how to use ‘peer to peer’ software like Kazaa to download movies, music and other files for free.

MP3DownloadCity led consumers to believe that they would not be sued if they paid $24.95 for the tutorial with claims like “Rest assured that File-Sharing is 100 percent legal,” the FTC charged.

Recording companies and movie studios have sued thousands of peer-to-peer users for copyright infringement over the past several years, and the Supreme Court ruled in June that peer-to-peer makers could be sued if they induce users to copy material without permission.

A US court in California ordered MP3DownloadCity.com to temporarily remove its claims as it considers the FTC’s request for a permanent ban.—Reuters