A coworker of mine just got a letter from the RIAA- she's getting sued for downloading almost 2,000 songs at $75 a piece. Do the math and you see how harsh that is. The thing is, she didn't do it- not even close. Five years ago her (then) 12 year old daughter downloaded a few songs via napster, but when mom found out they took them all off and they no longer have that computer. Since then they've only bought CDs (no legal downloads even). The letter she got mentions a specific day, about six months ago, and says that she'd made these ~2000 songs available via p2p, which simply isn't true. She doesn't even have the software installed to do it and neither she nor her husband are particularly savy with this kind of stuff (not it a bad way- I'm just saying they aren't computer geeks).

I'm sure she'll get out of it since it's pretty clear she didn't do it; however right now she's sweating bullets and worried about losing her house (even though they couldn't take it even if they won). I feel sorry for her- she does not need this stress right now. I'd love it if she'd counter sue, but I don't think she will. It's too bad because this is RIAA at its irresponsible worst.

She did say that she won't be buying anymore CDs from RIAA artists . . .

I believe her.