So did you hear about those kids at RPI and UM that got sued by the RIAA for allowing people to download MP3s from their websites? The four students in question have to pay between $10k and $20k for doing something that just about everyone I know under the age of 30 does with no moral difficulties. At least one of the students has been succesfully collecting donations on his website. I checked it out and also read a couple of quotes from him that made me think even less of the results of this suit. As he says, none of the artists that were supposedly victimized by his actions are going to see a dime of the settlement money, it's going to go the RIAA so that they have the money to sue more people. There's something wrong with that.

I do not claim to know what the solution to copyright problems resulting from the digitalization of America is, but I do know that it does not include suing everyone that trades music online. The RIAA claims that thousands of people in the music industry have lost their jobs due to music piracy, but I tend to think that if they were willing to adapt, many of those jobs could have been saved. As an example, a new CD comes out. Joe Blow, a very wired college student, is a big fan of the band that released the album, but when he goes to a store to buy it, he sees the $17 price tag. He looks in his wallet and sees only $17, but the guy has to eat lunch, and he also knows that a casette of this music would retail for like $12. CDs are cheaper to manufacture, so why should he pay extra when he can download the music off Kazaa for free and still eat. He eats, he gets his music, and he does not have to send more money to the price gouging music industry. Now just imagine the industry embraced new technology. Joe gets to the store and sees that his CD retails for $17, but there's also a way to download it from the music company's web site for $10. It's easier for him because he doesn't have to spend half an hour trying to peel of those transparent sticker seal things that are always on jewel cases, and it's cheaper. The music industry is shooting itself in the foot, and someday all the lawsuits in the world are not going to be able to maintain the status quo. For now they should follow Apple's lead and put music on the net for cheap.