A US federal court judge has been asked to shut down peer-to-peer file sharing companies Morpheus and Grokster.

Lawyers from the music industry described the firms as Napster with added features.

According to Mercury News, they asked a federal judge to find the company behind the networks guilty of contributing to widespread copyright infringement.

But lawyers for StreamCast Networks, the corporate parent Morpheus, maintained that the companies are merely software vendors which are no more liable for what users do with their technology than Xerox is when someone makes unauthorised copies of a copyrighted published work.

The arguments are a repeat of those made in the copyright infringement suit against Napster, which resulted in the service being shut down.

US District Judge Stephen Wilson said that he would issue an order soon. If he denies the entertainment industry's request, a trial will take place.