Students beware, Cary Sherman is out to take you down. The RIAA chairman was on Capitol Hill this week to testify in front of a House Judiciary Subcommittee on courts, the Internet and intellectual property. Sherman told Congress that music has never been more popular, adding that college students are the RIAA’s current pet peeve.
The RIAA warns it will go after college students with a renewed vigor, and indeed the organization has sent letters to hundreds of students at 13 U.S. universities in recent weeks demanding a steep financial settlement and warning students of coming federal lawsuits if settlements aren’t addressed quickly and paid in full. The average cost of defending against an RIAA lawsuit ranges into the tens of thousands of dollars, even though evidence of any wrong-doing presented may be flimsy at best.