Threat Level from Wired.com

It was five years ago Monday the Recording Industry Association of America began its massive litigation campaign that now includes more than 30,000 lawsuits targeting alleged copyright scofflaws on peer-to-peer networks.

Today, the RIAA — the lobbying group for the world’s big four music companies, Sony BMG, Universal Music, EMI and Warner Music — admits that the lawsuits are largely a public relations effort, aimed at striking fear into the hearts of would-be downloaders. Spokeswoman Cara Duckworth of the RIAA says the lawsuits have spawned a “general sense of awareness” that file sharing copyrighted music without authorization is “illegal.”

“It costs more to hire a lawyer to defend these cases than take the
settlement,” agrees Lory Lybeck, a Washington State attorney, who is
leading a prospective class-action against the RIAA for engaging in
what he says is “sham” litigation tactics. “That’s an important part of
what’s going on. The recording industry is setting a price where you
know they cannot hire lawyers. It’s a pretty well-designed system
whereby people are not allowed any effective participation in one of
the three prongs in the federal government.”