As part of its programme to deter the public from sharing music, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has just launched legal action against another 493 people.
The RIAA has already settled 486 cases, for and average US$3000 (€2486) each. That represents an income of about US$1,458,000 (€1.2 million) – not a bad return, really.
These new actions are “John Doe” cases as the RIAA doesn’t know who they are prosecuting – their identities will be revealed when the courts issue subpoenas.
However, it doesn’t seem that the RIAA’s action against users of P2P applications like Kazaa and Overnet is having much success. Although the RIAA has now sued 2,947 people peer-to-peer client usage is increasing. Research firm BigChampagne claim that 9.5 million people were logged in to P2P networks in April this year, up from 7.4 million concurrent users six months previously.
What’s wrong with the music industry in one long sentence – Thanks to Simon for sending me this link