P2P lawsuits: Behind the scenes

"Woman Silenced by Music Mafia," the headline reads. Let's be clear: It heads an opinion piece by a student at the University of Texas, Austin (as a demographic group, university students have been a primary target of anti-P2P litigation). But it provides insights into what it's like to be sued for file-sharing by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). For example, in the notice she received from her Internet service provider, Time Warner, "Evelyn" is given the phone number for a "Settlement Service Center" in Seattle, "a business that conducts settlement negotiations with individuals who have been sued." The SSC representative tells her that this wouldn't have happened if she'd shared fewer than 500 music files, the Daily Texan reports. The Service Center then proceeds to sell her on settling with the RIAA. The Daily Texan reporter did a little math on these lawsuits in general: "In January, the Big Music Mafia boasted it had launched another 717 lawsuits against people who share music online, bringing the total number of those victimized to a shocking 8,423. If each one of these victims settled at the pre-inflated average of $3,000, then the RIAA is set to make an easy $25,269,000." [Thanks to BNA Internet Law for pointing this article out.]