How's this for a line-up: Britney Spears, Nelly, Missy Elliott, Eminem, Madonna, Dixie Chicks, Elton John, Sting, Phil Collins, Luciano Pavarotti, Brian Wilson and Natalie Cole.

And, yes, they are in concert -- in one sense of the word -- as they are gathering for a widespread print and TV advertising campaign to state their collective stance of the evils of online piracy.

Reuters reports that the music stars will be featured in coming weeks in record-label-funded ads as a means to educate the public about the illegal downloading of music.

Some in the music industry blame piracy for a dramatic decline in CD sales, which fell more than 5 percent in 2001, and by another 7 percent in the first half of this year as the illegal downloading of music increases, says Reuters. Industry estimates indicate that every month more than 2.6 billion music files are downloaded illegally from the Internet, chiefly through unlicensed "peer-to-peer" services.

"We want to hit fans with the message that downloading music illegally is, as Britney Spears explains in one of the spots, 'the same thing as going into a CD store and stealing the CD, '" said Hilary Rosen, chief executive officer of Recording Industry Association of America.

"Too many people don't realize that when you download a song you like from a peer-to-peer network or some other unauthorized Internet source, what you're doing is stealing music," she said.

The TV ads will be unveiled today in Washington at a congressional hearing on piracy. The public will see it in a few weeks. The print version also begins today, with full-page ads in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and legal journals.