As a musician, I sometimes have mixed feelings about this. On some occasions I think, wow I shouldn't be downloading music for free. Then my my mind wanders to all those times I bought a record, brought it home and found out it was a total pile of shit. I have no problems supporting music.
Also, This is the industry that removed its cheaper products from the shelves (cd /tape singles, ect.) so if you wanted to hear your bands fav radio hit, you had to buy the whole record. So of course, smart ppl found another way to get there hands on them. CD burners came out, and they were doing back flips. They thought they had a media that couldn't be fucked with. Wrong Again.
So all in all, they come down to the last tactics that sometimes works. FEAR. Yes, they decided to sue 13 year old kids and adults alike. The only industry that has ever sued there customers as far as I know(if you take all my money, how will i afford your products?)
The RIAA put together a boilerplate law suite, that they could file, on large groups of people, and win. BUT NOT ANYMORE! The rules have changed Im happy to report. So fuck you RIAA here is the skinny below.
"The decision many lawyers had been expecting — that the RIAA's 'boilerplate' complaint fails to state a claim for relief under the Copyright Act — has indeed come down, but from an unlikely source. While the legal community has been looking towards a Manhattan case (Elektra v. Barker) for guidance, the decision instead came from Senior District Court Judge Rudi M. Brewster of the US District Court for the Southern District of California. The decision handed down denied a default judgment (i.e. the defendant had not even appeared in the action). Judge Brewster not only denied the default judgment motion but dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Echoing the words of Judge Karas at the oral argument in Barker , Judge Brewster held (pdf) that 'Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against the Defendant. However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on "information and belief" Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works, Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation.'"
SO fuck you RIAA! Either get on the bus, or get off the fucking street.
J13P