It's easy to hate the RIAA. It's a little harder to make the RIAA's mobster tactics seem justified.

Some lady downloads 1000 songs so she can "determine what she like[s] enough to buy at retail." Only she forgot to delete the ones she decided not to buy and, I suppose accidently, shared those songs via some file sharing service. Part of her defense was that she buys CDs sometimes- she owns 250 of them. My wife has 250 CDs and she can't even name the Beatles. 1000 songs is about 83 CDs worth. This defense sounds like some of the excuses my kids give me for not doing their chores. In sum, this is not the test case I would choose if I were looking to make some new law vis a vis the RIAA.

I'd find a grandmother accused of stealing Snoop Dogg music or maybe a dead grandmother who didn't even have a computer. In other words, if you need to change the law, start with facts that will make someone try hard to rule in your favor.

These are not that kind of facts.

Yahoo story here.
Memeorandum discussion here.

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