The Motion Picture Association of America is launching civil and criminal actions worldwide against movie pirates in a bid to curb illegal film downloading.

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"We have taken action against over 100 servers in many countries on four continents," said John Malcolm, director of worldwide anti-piracy at the MPAA, the main lobbying group for Hollywood's major studios.

The MPAA already has taken legal steps in the United Kingdom, France, Finland, the Netherlands and the United States, CNN reported Wednesday.

Measures taken this week were aimed at parties who act as conduits between downloaders and three specific "peer-to-peer" file-sharing technologies: BitTorrent, eDonkey and DirectConnect, which provide users with lists of movies, songs and television shows that can be swapped with other users.

"This is another category of pirate," Macolm said. "These people are parasites leeching off the creativity of others."

The MPAA filed its first batch of lawsuits last month against more than 200 individuals it accused of stealing movies off the Web.