Can the RIAA win by breeding fear and confusion? Not in the long run because those they wish to frighten and confuse are their customers, who when all is said and done, owe them nothing.

By the way: where did the RIAA get the idea to send file sharers threatening IMs? Perhaps from their opponents in the Verizon case:

"We made an argument to the judge that (the RIAA) always has the option to contact the user directly rather than go through the ISP," said Verizon's associate general counsel, Sarah Deutsch. "The means to do that would be the chat feature."

One intellectual property attorney involved in the case was rather amused by the news.

"This was something that came up in the Verizon case after the recording industry claimed that they had no way of contacting end users," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is working on the case on behalf of consumer and privacy groups in support of Verizon.

"That's just too funny," von Lohmann said. "It's fascinating that they are now taking our advice."

A representative for the RIAA said that the group "knew of this capability separately from whatever Verizon suggested" and said that it did not get the idea to contact file swappers from Verizon. [Wired]

In addition, here is the text of the RIAA's threatening IM:

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT WARNING: It appears that you are offering copyrighted music to others from your computer. Distributing or downloading copyrighted music on the Internet without permission from the copyright owner is ILLEGAL. It hurts songwriters who create and musicians who perform the music you love, and all the other people who bring you music.

When you break the law, you risk legal penalties.There is a simple way to avoid that risk: DON'T STEAL MUSIC, either by offering it to others to copy or downloading it on a "file-sharing" system like this.

When you offer music on these systems, you are not anonymous and you can easily be identified.You also may have unlocked and exposed your computer and your private files to anyone on the Internet. Don't take these chances. Disable the share feature or uninstall your "file-sharing" software.

For more information on how, go to http://www.musicunited.net/5_takeoff.html.

This warning comes from artists, songwriters, musicians, music publishers, record labels and hundreds of thousands of people who work at creating and distributing the music you enjoy. We are unable to receive direct replies to this message. For more information about this Copyright Warning, go to http://www.musicunited.net.