A while ago we reported you that the
RIAA had sued four university students who were
operating file-search services on their school's internal networks. Thanks
to scum1 we can read a follow-up story on this news, over at The
Freep.com.
It seems that the RIAA (Recording
Industry Association of
America) has gone mad this time since they've sued one of
the students for the astronomical figure of $ 150.000 per song, the maximum
allowed by law:
 Lawsuits
against four college students accused of trading copyrighted songs are the
biggest punch yet by the recording industry against its core audience, and
has experts worried that the next step will be suing the colleges
themselves.
The damages sought by the suits are astronomical: $
150,000 per song, the maximum allowed by law. Multiply that by the 652,000
or so songs the RIAA alleges student Joseph Nievelt offered to other
Michigan Tech students on his service, and the scope of the suit is clear.
That total? About $ 97.8 trillion -- yes, trillion
with a T -- or enough money to buy every CD sold in America last year over
again for the next 120,000 years, according to RIAA statistics. And that's
just Nievelt's case.
RIAA senior vice president for business and legal
affairs Matthew Oppenheim said the suits are intended to send a clear
message to anyone running these types of services that punishment will be
swift and severe. |
According to the article the RIAA's purpose of these ridiculous suits is to
intimidate future and current file-sharers.
Source: Free Press
