Judge Orders RIAA to justify its piracy charges

You know, it's been awhile since I've written anything about the RIAA or the CRIA. Our favourite groups must be getting ready for the Christmas season so they are not suing dead people or those who have no computers.

This caught my eye and it makes some very interesting reading.

To sum it up, one of the people who were sued challenged the RIAA and their calculations for damage. The RIAA claims each and every download is worth $750.00 and so they use that to calcuate how much they are suing each person. You got a hundred songs, congratulations, it will cost you $7,500.00. Which for the average student is a lot of cash.

So one of the people decided to challenge the calculations. The basis of the argument is the fact thatonly costs $0.99 to purchase a song. Therefore the argument goes, why are they coming up with such an outlandish figure.

What makes this even more interesting is the judge demanding the plaintiffs to justify their numbers.

You can read some of the court documents here. The judge is agreeing with the defendant and she can amend her defense to include this. In other words, if the RIAA sues you they can only sue you $0.99 a song. So instead of 7500 it might be only $100.00.

If the RIAA can only get $0.99 a song, then it may not be worth their effort.

Let's see how this rides out.