Battleangel

The Register: RIAA cashes in on file-swapping students.

The settlement is complete. Through intimidation and fear, the RIAA has forced the four students involved to agree to pay fines ranging from $12,000 - $17,500 in order to get off the hook. The reactions on the net have been more or less unanimous. This has been bad PR fro the RIAA. Chances are that few judges would see their point of view now if a case like this ever got to court.

People are calling for everything from boycotts to firebombing the RIAA HQ and assassinations. Well, if you play aggressive like the RIAA is doing right now, you better be prepared to reap the fruits of this policy.

You have to remember that these students never provided “illegal” downloads. They just provided a search engine and thus provided links to the material. It is also cowardly to attack those that obviously won’t be able to handle a fine of this magnitude (they were threatened with $100M initially! Is THAT legal?). Thirdly, the names of the students involved were made public. All in all good old proven Nazi tactics from the RIAA.

Further reading: Boycott-riaa.com