RIAA moves lawsuit focus from consumers to industry

Some recent big news that could threaten the reign of terror that the RIAA is currently waging against individual U.S. consumers: In a crushing blow this June, a judge ordered the RIAA to pay Tanya Anderson, an unassuming Oregon mom, over $100,000 in reimbursement for attorney's fees she racked up defending herself from a wrong-headed lawsuit against her. And last week, the RIAA actually paid the bill.

Given that the RIAA routinely collects about $3,000 from citizens when they choose to settle with the association over accused file sharing, Anderson's payout is equal to about 35 successful settlements on the RIAA's side. That has to hurt the litigious music group and may make them think twice next time they go to court.

Will the six-figure expense stifle continued lawsuits? It's hard to say. To date the RIAA has won only one trial against a music sharer and even that is starting to look shaky. Earlier this month the judge in that case said he may declare a mistrial, reconsidering whether the music labels should have had to prove that "sharing" actually led to "downloading." In simple terms, while Thomas may have made songs available for download on her computer, there is no proof that anyone actually did download them.

In a related case, one defendant is arguing that she was unaware of infringement since she didn't understand what the Kazaa software she installed actually did: She's asking for damages per song to be reduced to $200 instead of $750. Considering the effort involved in suing individual people, the RIAA may slow down its legal efforts if it doesn't make headway in the courts.

Meanwhile, the RIAA seems to have already redirected its focus, at least a little, away from individual sharers and toward the greener pastures of universities and commercial, online music services. Congress just passed an RIAA-sponsored bill that will force colleges to filter traffic to stop music sharing, while online services like Pandora say that RIAA royalty hikes are so extreme that the service is likely to shut down. Similarly, the online Muxtape service is currently offline, facing legal threats from the organization.

That's the RIAA... they always have to be suing someone.