College Student Raises Money For Piracy Fine Online. Jesse Jordan, one of the four students who built a search engine (not file sharing software) for his university network and was forced to settle with the RIAA, has happily announced that, via online donations he has raised the $12,000 necessary to pay the settlement fees. Jesse, however, appears to not be backing down (good for him). He put his search engine back online, and the RIAA tried to rescind the settlement and sue him again. Jesse continued to stand up for his right to create and use a search engine. It appears that the RIAA finally backed down, after a judge told them it wouldn’t be wise for them to reopen the case. It’s unfortunate that people just needed to dump an extra $12,000 into the hands of the RIAA when nothing illegal occurred.
[Techdirt]
I think that it is a uniquely modern solution for the Internet to be used to raise money for someone who was dragged through the justice system by lawyers with nothing really important to do. The RIAA is busily alienating its own customers, making the 18-32 year olds absolutely hate them. And the RIAA responds by threatening to sue anyone who has copyrighted material it does not approve of. Not very smart. But then no one said the RIAA was really very smart or far sighted.
A Man With A Ph.D. 