Sega, which is based in Japan and has operations in San Francisco, is teaming with other console makers and software publishers to fight back. Their arsenal was considerably beefed up when Congress this year passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allowed copyright holders to go after Web sites and Internet service providers that host sales of pirated software.

In this latest broadside, Sega last week began issuing cease and desist orders to five auction sites, including those hosted by Yahoo, eBay, Lycos, Excite, and Amazon.com, according to Charles Bellfield, Sega's spokesman. In addition, the company asked Internet service providers to shut down Web sites that sell pirated games, as well as companies hosting virtual hard drives that are used by their customers for storing pirated games.

''Those companies that do not comply will face both civil and criminal prosecution by both federal and state authorities with whom we are working with,'' said Bellfield.

Thus far, all the companies Sega has approached have cooperated, according to Bellfield. Sega continues to issue cease and desist orders daily, he said. The company, which said it loses millions of dollars a year to piracy, is working with European officials and negotiating with Asian law enforcement on its crusade.

Last March, Sega teamed with game maker Nintendo and Electronic Arts, a large game publisher, to file a lawsuit against Yahoo to prevent pirated games from being sold on Yahoo's Web site. The case, filed in US District Court in California, is still pending.

But game industry analysts question how successful companies will be in stamping out illicit copying of digital products via Napster, DivX, or a simple $200 compact disk ''burner'' that can duplicate CDs.

Related information:

• Sega's Dreamcast game console hacked
• Is Napster a Security Risk
• What the heck is Napster?
• Programmers Help "Napster" Clones Take Off.

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