The Japanese music industry is ramping up its fight against mobile-based piracy.

The Telecommunications Carriers Association and local labels body the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) on Sept. 16 set up the Council for Countermeasures Against Mobile Music Piracy (CAMP) together with mobile carriers and rights-holders’ associations, in cooperation with government agencies such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

CAMP’s job is come up with an outline of new anti-mobile piracy measures by the end of this year. One system reportedly under discussion would use a central server to check song-ID information sent by users’ mobile phones each time they download a song. Users will be sent a warning message if the server finds the song has been illegally downloaded. Continued illegal downloading will result in downloads being “terminated,” or the user’s handset made incapable of playing back the track once it’s been downloaded.

The RIAJ estimates that 407 million master-ringtone and full-length tracks were illegally downloaded to mobile phones in Japan in 2008, up from 399 million in 2007.

Named as CAMP chairman was Keio University associate professor Naoto Kikuchi, while University of Tokyo professor Hitoshi Aida will serve as adviser to the council.

CAMP’s member organizations are NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, Softbank Mobile, EMobile, Willcom, the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC), the Japan Association of Music Enterprises, the Federation of Music Producers, the RIAJ, Avex Marketing, Victor Entertainment, MTI, Dwango, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Cabinet Secretariat, the Cultural Affairs Agency and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.