A "full employment" scheme for lawyers? The music publishers seem to be getting pretty aggressive about prosecuting file sharers:
Parents, roommates -- even grandparents -- are being targeted in the music industry's new campaign to track computer users who share songs over the Internet, bringing the threat of expensive lawsuits to more than college kids. . . .
"[T]here's no way either us or our daughter would do anything we knew to be illegal," [one subpoenaed father] said, promising to remove the software quickly. "I don't think anybody knew this was illegal, just a way to get some music."
The president of the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the largest music labels, warned that lawyers will pursue downloaders regardless of personal circumstances because it would deter other Internet users.
"The idea really is not to be selective, to let people know that if they're offering a substantial number of files for others to copy, they are at risk," Cary Sherman said. "It doesn't matter who they are."
Over the coming months this may be the Internet's equivalent of shock and awe, the stunning discovery by music fans across America that copyright lawyers can pierce the presumed anonymity of file-sharing, even for computer users hiding behind clever nicknames such as ``hottdude0587'' or ``bluemonkey13.''
On the one hand, "uh oh." But on the other hand, I can imagine the music industry essentially bankrupting itself by filing fruitless lawsuits against thousands of college students who have no assets. Don't these people see the success that Apple has had selling music for a dollar a song? Hello???
The NYT has the full story here.