RIAA Using Every Trick Possible

It has been widely publicized that the RIAA filed lawsuits against 261 people alleged to have been illegally sharing copywritten music over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as Kazaa. As if suing your own customers isn't a public relations fiasco enough, the first of the 261 lawsuits to settle was actually a 12-year old girl living in public housing. The girl and her mother settled with the RIAA for $2000- an amount which may sound small but which they most likely don't have lying around. P2P United, a peer-to-peer file sharing industry trade group including Grokster and Morpheus, has stepped forward to pay the $2000 settlement on the girl's behalf. The RIAA is also using every trick in the book to bring pressure to squash the peer-to-peer networking industry. They are encouraging the government to crack down on P2P networks claiming that they are a major source of child pornography and a means for child predators to find and contact their victims. They couldn't get them shut down for harboring illegal music files so they are playing the child pornography trump card. They seem to believe there is a direct correlation between the amount of illegal file swapping going on and the decline in sales. While it may have some impact, I would argue that if you take away the ability to download MP3's from P2P networks those people won't necessarily go buy the CD. They download it because they can, but they won't necessarily go spend $18 for a CD with one or two good songs on it.