RIAA lawsuit

Quote:

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University students have been widely viewed as the core of the various file-swapping networks ever since the appearance of Napster on the digital scene in late 1999. Universities have seen half or more of their network bandwidth used by people uploading and downloading songs, software and movies over the past few years.

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http://news.com.com/2100-1027-995429.html

Now they're suing the students who are running music servers.
It may backfire on them if they sue students directly, rather than the
schools.
:cool:

Ever since Napster was shut down because of legal action brought forth by the RIAA, I've wondered how long it would take before the RIAA would start to pursue individual song-swappers. With these legal actions taken against the students and with the issues with the customer of Verizon, it looks as if this is coming.

How are you thinking that it could backfire on the RIAA? I would almost think that they should sue the schools if it's the schools lines that are being used. If the students have run their own cabling, setting up their own networks, then the RIAA could go after the students.

Will all of the legal action completely fix the problem in the end? Doubtfull - there are some people who, either by not knowing about the lawsuits or simply not caring will still continue to swap songs, and for that fact any kind of material. That's just the way that it is. Yea, sure, the RIAA could bring some swappers into court for some high profile cases, but they can't get the millions of people who are swapping - it's simply not going to happen. While I personally don't run any of these P2P programs to swap any kind of files, I know those that do. I've discussed with them what could happen, and of the inherent security risks, but they don't care. These are the types I'm talking about - as long as it's free, they'll continue to do so. The RIAA just needs to accept this and let the major record labels pursue legal, legitimate song swapping services.