There are two points of view regarding the PR aspects of the RIAA's aggressive legal assault on file sharers: one side holds that the RIAA knows its image with the public is on par with refried shit, doesn't care, and this campaign is to intimidate, alter downloading-uploading behavior, impress upon the public that file sharing is neither anonymous nor without potential consequences, and in that regard they are succeeding.

The other side holds that ultimately the purpose of any trade group action is to sell product, and this action is so infuriating the public with its arrogant heavy-handedness that it will finally rouse normally complacent consumers into actually taking action against its tormentors (boycotts, etc), that the taste is so bad it will not go away, and that this will definitely harm sales over time rather than help them.

Based upon what I have seen in the media and heard from the public, I'd say the latter is more true, although there is no question that the public is now much more aware that file sharing is not without potential consequences, that parents and grandparents will keep a much closer eye on how their computers are used, and people will be much more inclined to download only rather than make their own files available over the P2P networks.

Since we are talking about entertainment here and not bread and milk, I think the vile image problem will far outweigh any perceived gains over time, and could very well backfire via the political end as well, as politicians respond to the howls of their constituents.

By way of elucidation, here is an email I received from a reader:

Dear Eric:

Is Cary Sherman crazy? What he did to that 12 year old girl is reprehensible. If he is trying to make a statement that the RIAA has power, he made it, but he alienated the entire US population. If he ever went into my computer and looked at my IP address without my permission, I would sue him big time. This is the United States of America and we do have rights, amd what he is doing is a violation of privacy in the highest degree. I have many cd's and I take the music off the cd's that I bought and transfer them to my computer so I can listen to them so who is to say I downloaded them to my computer from KaZaa, Napster, etc.

This happened to me when Napster came out; I got locked out of Napster because I was accused of downloading a file from a group called "Little Texas" called "What Might Have Been." I fought tooth and nail that they violated my privacy (by going on the internet and posting my problem and then having the people who own the site contact the people who locked me out - as soon as it became more of a public matter, I got my rights back because they made an error) because I own the cd that song is on and I took it off my cd and put it on my computer along with other songs. When they realized what they did, they gave me access back to Napster. These people are treading on dangerous territory.

I read something where the Senate is looking into his actions especially for what he did to an innocent child.

It may be copyright infringement to download music files and listen to the songs on your own computer, but he should be going after the people that are downloading the files and selling bootleg cd's.

I am 56 years old, and when I was growing up, we took music off the radio and put it on to cassette - were the radio police there saying that we were committing copyright infringement? How greedy can these people get?

If you have Cary Sherman's email address, please let me know because I would like to email my comments to him directly.

Sincerely,

Nancy Muniz