Michael McCartney wrote:
>Jordan?s out-of-work father Andy, who owns thousands of records 
>and CDs, says the fine will burden his family. "The RIAA says 
>that they wanted to teach these kids and their families a lesson,"
>he told the Times. "The lesson we learned is that we will never, 
>ever buy another product from any of those companies again.
>That's the lesson we're going to tell everyone."

The crux of the entire situation - the cartel mantra:  
The customer is my enemy and my competitors are my friends. 

Now these guys were stupidly running Napster-like servers
(centralized database - newer peer-to-peer uses decentralized 
database models) and were easy pickings, but targeting college 
students will drive peer-to-peer software developers (ie college
students) to build cryptography directly into the software.

Big Media could be digging it's own grave, though I fear a 
partnership between the Patriot Act loonies, the DCMA/RIAA crowd
and Hollywood could soon have us all under house arrest.

 - michael

NP: Thomas & Richard Frost ----- wow...