The Mootley Fool has it exactly right:
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/09/24/riaas-day-in-court-nearly-over.aspx
"...John Doe filings against nameless IP addresses is wrong on so many levels that I can't list them all in this brief space. Let me just name a few of the most important flaws:
* It's a great way to alienate music fans, with very little payoff. The lawsuits have so far failed to stem the illegal downloading tide, and the costs must rival the settlement payoff by now.
* Even if the Internet service provider keeps very detailed access logs, it's nearly impossible to prove that a certain IP address was used by a particular person at any given time.
* Copyright is meant to encourage the creative process, not to fatten corporate coffers or limit the available means of distribution. Again, we haven't seen any payouts to the actual artists and composers here, only to legal teams and company bankrolls."
Followed up by this:
"It's real. It's happening. There's no way the RIAA could afford to start many more lawsuits when the chances of winning dwindle to nothing. Good riddance."
All this is coming from a business news and investing web site. Mootley Fool doesn't have a dog in this fight, other than reporting what's happening from a technology and business perspective. Capitalism is destructive. The new displaces the old and capital will flow accordingly.
In not so many years, young people are going to look back in wonder and ask us old timers why the media business worked so hard for so long and spend so much money to kill music, and what (by then) will be the music business.
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