That's the basis of any kind of online criminal investigation, though. If it was prosecution of a disgusting form of pornography, everyone would be cheering about it. Without invoking a form of Godwin's Law, I'm not suggesting they're on the same level, I'm saying that one is very bad, one is less bad in the grand scheme of things. But public perception is that one is very bad and the other is a grand injustice being put upon this woman?!?
I'm not a big fan of how the cases may be "bought out" rather than settled, but I'm also not a big fan of how prevalent the law breaking is and how it's seen as "stickin' it to the man" like some modern Robin Hood.
There's a feeling of "aww... that poor woman" when, if the allegations are true, she's breaking copyright law.
Everyone's got that line drawn in the sand of when the decline of music started, it's best calculated by taking the year of your birth and add 18. This is the year "music started to suck." The fact that music sucks after this date doesn't mean that you should get the new Nickelback for free because it's nowhere near as good as "Houses of the Holy" was.
Good, bad or ugly... like anything, the RIAA will do whatever it can to survive - I'd just rather its targets were chosen a little more "submachine gun" (by targeting offenders) and a little less "granny's scattergun" (by saddling us all with draconian DRM and rootkits, and those awful DVD openers).
Easy for me to say, though, I've never used a P2P sharing app, so I
am holier than thou.
Bren R.
