A lawsuit recently filed against the RIAA asserts claims, under the "Computer Fraud and Abuse" and "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization" acts, detailing the RIAA's alleged use of "illegal and flawed" methods when investigating people for downloading or swapping copyrighted songs without paying for them.

Basking in glory after orchestrating a record punishment for a petty file-sharer in the US, the RIAA takes its legal campaign to the next level. Many may want newsgroups to stay under the radar but it’s too late - major labels have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usenet.com and it won’t be going away.

Slashdot had this scoop, posted by xseedit: "The RIAA has moved their main Web site www.riaa.com from IIS on Win2003 to Apache 2.2.3 on Red Hat. It appears that the move did not go smoothly as it resulted in an 8-hour downtime starting yesterday around noon, according to Netcraft. And the RIAA is still showing a 'temporarily under construction' page."

“... 'This could be the true beginning of the end for the RIAA in its attempts to bring students to heel, turning them into compliant consumers of corporate product under threat of legal persecution and severe financial penalties no student can afford.' ..."

"After falling victim to a domain and brand hijacking, Shareaza is fighting back at the scammers, assisted by the Software Freedom Law Centre, the EFF and Richard Stallman. "

Besides they just announced Shareaza 3.0 based on QT 4.4!!

Another file-sharing defendant who says she has never installed or used file-sharing software is fighting back against the RIAA, accusing the music industry of waging war in the US court system to "shore up the American recording industry's failing business model."

"The University of Oregon (my alma mater, coincidentally) is believed to be the first US educational institution to refuse an RIAA demand to hand over the names of students alleged to have illegally downloaded music..."

A University of Tennessee student asks to have an RIAA subpoena seeking his name, addresses, phone number, e-mail address, and MAC address quashed. His argument: the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act bars the school from releasing the data without his or his parents' permission.

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