By Alex Veiga
The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - The music industry's trade group has ended a program that offered to prevent people from being sued by recording companies if the downloaders admitted to illegally sharing music online, according to court documents.

The Recording Industry Association of America launched the "Clean Slate" program in September, when it embarked on a strategy of suing individual computer users for copyright infringement.

The program required individuals to acknowledge in writing that they shared music files online, then remove the files from their computers. In exchange, the RIAA pledged not to target them in its lawsuit campaign.

While hundreds signed up, critics dismissed the program, saying the trade group could not possibly guarantee that anyone who admitted to file-sharing would not be the target of a lawsuit.

Eric Parke, a Novato, Calif., resident, challenged the program in court, accusing the RIAA of fraudulent business practices for promoting the program and asking the judge for an injunction against the trade group.

In papers filed Friday, attorneys for the RIAA asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds that the case is now moot, because the trade group dropped the program earlier this month.