RIAA's Frivolous Lawsuits

MP3 Newswire comments upon a legal "victory" for the recording industry:

"A federal US appeals court has upheld a $22,500 judgment against Cecilia Gonzalez, a 29-year-old Chicago mother and a victim in one of the first Big Four p2p file sharing cases.

The mother of five children, in September, 2003, she was among the first 261 people to be named at the beginning of by the Big Four Organized Music cartel's twisted sue 'em all marketing campaign."

Look, I agree that downloading music is, for lack of a softer word, stealing.  But these penalties are ridiculous - the woman has to pay $750 for each song she downloaded.  That's hardly justified considering the value of the songs is, at best, $20 each.  (Valuing the song equal to the whole album.)

One statement in the article raises my curiosity:

"The cartel implies it's successfully "prosecuted" some 17,000 people when in reality, not one of them, including Gonzalez, has ever been before a judge. And not one of them, including Gonzalez, has ever been found guilty of anything by a jury of their peers."

I wonder if that's true.  If it is, you've no idea how tempted I am to get myself sued by the RIAA...