As if the titans of music industry didn’t have enough bad karma in their ethereal bank account, now they are on another round of “sue people who can’t protect themselves in court because it is expensive” for illegally downloading music. A couple of stories were recently posted on MSN and Seattle PI about the lawsuits and letters delivered to college students and individuals regarding illegally downloaded music. While the main story is old news, the real story buried in the PI article discusses how file sharing software like Limewire, BearShare, etc. leave open a perfectly legitimate access point that allows RIAA researchers the ability to scan harddrives. This is scary for a couple of reasons: 1) if the RIAA can get in to see how many illegal downloads you have, who else can get in to mess with your computer? 2) If RIAA can see illegal music downloads, what can other people see on your system?

While I understand the RIAA’s need to protect it’s artists and labels from piracy, there has got to be a better way to deal with music piracy than sue the people who form the foundation of your customer base. Especially by invading their privacy. Legal services like Rhapsody, Napster, Yahoo give you legal access to most of the music you want for a very small monthly fee and is a much safer way to go about having access to large music collections.

Here are some of the numbers published in the Seattle PI that I thought were interesting:

- 7,000,000 households (out of ~150 million in the US) estimated by the RIAA to have illegally downloaded music.
- 20,000 Americans threatened with suits by four major record companies
- $30,000 maximum fine allowed by law per illegal file
- $4,924 average paid settlement by Western Washington residents to record companies
- $6,100 average fine against those who failed to respond to companies.