A federal jury recently awarded in favor of the RIAA in their case against Boston College student Joel Tenenbaum. Tenenbaum, who was accused of illegally downloading 30 songs from peer-to-peer (P2P) site Kazaa back in 2004, has been ordered to pay $675,000--or $22,500 per song--to the RIAA.
In the only other case of its kind where a verdict has been reached, a Minnesota women was ordered to pay $1.92 million for downloading and sharing 24 songs back in June.
These hefty fines for doing what millions of people do all over the world are obviously the RIAA's version of shock-and-awe. Problem is, the RIAA's energy is misguided. Instead of dinging people for huge chunks of change the recording industry governing body likely will never see, the RIAA needs to come up with a viable business model that makes legally purchasing music a more attractive option than using Limewire, Kazaa, or Rapidshare to jack it.
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