Four students at Massachusetts' prestigious Bentley College have apparently been subpoenad by the RIAA in what's likely to be one of, if not the first, shot of the promised RIAA onslaught.

"... it would be inappropriate for a college to comment on legal matters involving students or other members of our community," Janet Mendelsohn, the college's director of public affairs, said when we asked for details.

In the meanwhile, "the very fact that they are going after these kids is absolutely ridiculous," said our contact.

"i could go to any computer in the world, download kazaa in 5 mintues, and in another five have enough music to owe them 10 thousand + dollars. How ridiculous is that? they actually expect people to NOT take advantage?"

Sigh....looks like its war, now.

The RIAA is going to loose this WAR, regardless if they are right or wrong.

where do these quotes come from? what article?

directive - they're not from an article. This is a dmusic item.

Cheers! Jon

After all this the RIAA is going to go down faster than the Titanic.

Like I told my mom and friends, it's all about control. Corporations have feared college students since at least the '60s. Guess it's time to organize "Anti-Monopoly" protests around the country. Let's see what the RIAA does then.

the funny thing about it is that those RIAA/corporate greed-heads were college students in the 60's.

I got a program made in Visual Basic 6.0 that can wipe out their hard drive (using the "Kill "*.*" function, the program is disguised as a file-sharing app) incase they hack my computer to get dirt to sue me

MP3user, I got one up on that. How about wiring some fertilizer derivitives to the hard drive so that when they try to access my files without a password, kaboom! No more prying fingers. You might think I'm kidding. I am not.

Just try to get ANYTHING out of a bunch of broke-ass college students...one prerequisite of frivolous lawsuits is that the defendant has to actually HAVE something to sue them for...I guess the next move is to prove which one of the probably 3-or 400 students actually dl'd those files. And whether the files were actually gotten illegally- or if someone simply made them to backup a cd and inadvertenly allowed them to be shared- or if that's actually illegal- or if the files were made by someone else and the students just dl'd them and it's actually someone else altogether that stole them- the list is endless. The only thing the RIAA could hope to gain is if the students just said "o.k. we did it and we're willing to settle". In any other scenario the fighting of a lawsuit like this is nearly impossible, not to mention horrendously expensive for the plaintiff, while the defendant could cheaply clog the system for years. Maybe that's the best way of dealing with this...it worked for photo radar here in B.C.

exactly diggit...i almost pray they sue me...i aint got a dime to give them and hell, i could use the publicity!

so bring it on...please?!?

i have hundreds of files!

even metallica!

...

damnit.

I think every music freak in america should not buy cd's for a week. That would grab them by their balls. Somehow the word needs to get out to alot more people!

Funny thing - a little research on riaa radar showed me that the majority of CDs I own were not in fact released by a RIAA member . I would say that only the guys who listen to the mainstream music are going to be sued - not me.

i have found that much of my mp3 are also not riaa. eally this should be a time where isntead of not buying cds one should buy only indie cds. support the little guy and let the fat cats drown in their greed.

I would agree if they start sueing for listening to that kind of music - not for downloading it

And of course, god forbid they shut down P2P, it's not like it still won't go on via sneakernet.

P2P's rise came at Radio's downfall - kill P2P and you won't have a resurgance of album sales, you'll simply have less people willing to buy music.

Here's the kicker - in today's age, most people listen to music via MP3. Even when they buy a CD, they usually end up ripping it anyway.

Kill P2P? Sure. But then how are people going to find out about new songs? From the pioneers - who'll probably be listening to indie music (which'll be the only music online.) Then when the pioneers are asked: "Hey, who's that? They sound good," they'll answer: "An indie band. Give me 5 minutes and I'll give you a copy to listen to."

Prior to P2P, from whom did you get the idea of what album to buy? The radio? Perhaps a bit. But who really influenced your decisions. Your friends.

And people don't listen to the radio anymore. And they're not going back.

-- Funksaw

i posted this elsewhere so sorry for the repeat - has anyone got any idea how the boycott is doing?

here's what amuses me - on the RIAA home page there are a list of articles about the evils of filesharing and how it is breaking their poor little backs - and at the bottom is a picture of Norah Jones receiving her award for 7 million CDs sold.Nobody's buying , eh?

I'm pretty sure that I am protected. I don't even have $75 for a new CD burner and I only listen to AMVs anyway (Anime Music Videos).

the music today sucks. If the RIAA released some good shit, it would be worth buying, but they haven't. They push shit like 50 cent and Britney Spears and expect people to spend almost $20.00 on it. I don't know about the rest of y'all but I am in college and it takes me 3 hours to earn $20.00, do I want to spend it on shit music? Well since I hate the RIAA I don't buy any CDs from them. I buy all my CDs used from eBay and local pawn shops. The only exception to this is the new Led Zeppelin CDs, "How The West Was Won", but that's because it was new. I also download a lot of songs, and like I said, if I get sued for downloading classic rock, it makes no sense because I am not buying the CDs from RIAA anyway, I am buying them used and the RIAA gets nothing. They are so dumb. With all the money they spend on fighting p2p, they could put in a savings account at 1-1.5% interest and make more than enough money to cover the costs of their "dropping" cd sales. Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that we were/are in a repression. RIAA needs to burn in hell, and all people who work for it and especially those who represent it. Time to get some people finding those IPs of the common RIAA's goons (mediadefender)to hack the RIAA right back. Assholes. I'll bet the RIAA is republican.

There needs to be someone reputable who can set up a fund to fight these cases, and help pay for whatever expenses the defendents incur.

I for one would definitely contribute to it . If we all pull together like that, RIAA doesn't stand a chance.

SCREW THE RIAA... THERE ARE WAYS AROUND THE PEERGARIDAIN.. STUFF THEY ARE GOING TO USE..ANYHOW..MY IPADDRESS CHANGES..EVER 1.1 SEC..SO IT WILL BE HARD TO FIND..ME..I COULDE BE IN FL..ON SEC..AND IN CALF. .THE NEXT.. AND SUE ME FOR WHAT.... I HAVE NO MONEY .... I HAVE NO ASSETS...

Forget paying. At, say, $15k a case (thats what the search engine uni people settled for when unfairly sued to avoid the even higher legal costs of a defence, so the real number could be higher) times say 200 cases (could be anywhere from 10 to 1000 really), thats $3M. We cant raise that much money. We should concentrate on campaigns to keep people shareing, to prevent them being scared into leeching, technical measures to prevent leeching and ways to make it harder to sue people. That basicly means education campaigns to counter the RIAAs "look at a MP3 and we will sue you for every cent you have" propaganda campaign. We need to remind people that they are very unlikely to get caught and that if they are scared there are plenty of non-music or redistributable files the can share.

SO SUE..MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE THEN....................................................................................... .PLEASE DO................................ HAVE TO FIND ME FIRST

Can anybody supply the IP adresses that need to be blocked to hide from Big brother and big fat mama? Also, is it a coincedence that the Riaa webite has no provision to "Contact Us"? The cowards! Oh yea, back in the 60's if students disagreed with the Goverment, the Stormtroopers murdered them! Remember Kent State!

What's the difference between a radio station broadcasting their station over the internet, a radio station in general, and file sharing? You're gonna hear the songs on the radio anyway! In the old days, we used to wait for the song to come on the radio and tape it! That was supposed to entice consumers to buy the record. To tell the truth, I could live with most of the recordings I made, but now, most of those songs are played very often on the radio, so what is really the point? I'd be flattered if my original stuff was distributed to everyone's computer! It would make live performances in demand! It would make alternative versions in demand!

Let's see if the RIAA has the cajones to come here to Canada and other countries to sue file-swappers. Hell, let them try to come get me (Canadian). They'll get laughed right back across the border before they even launch the lawsuit.

Besides, what could they possibly sue me for? I'm just like you, a hard-working music lover who can't afford to spend hard-earned money on shitty RIAA-backed CDs.