Dear RIAA

via PC World:

A Boston student has been ordered to pay US$675,000 to the recording industry for illegal file-sharing, according to reports Friday.

Joel Tenenbaum had admitted to downloading and sharing digital music. Judge Nancy Gertner of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts found him guilty of infringement and left the jury to decide damages.

They were instructed to charge him between $750 and $30,000 for each song he downloaded and distributed. On Friday, the jury decided he should pay $22,500 per song, according to Ars Technica.

I had no idea that something that costs 99 cents on iTunes could ever appreciate over 750%. Seriously, RIAA, don't you think you're taking this whole music royalty and file-sharing crackdown thing a little too far? Now, I'm not going to say I'm innocent of doing some illegal downloading myself. In fact that's far from the truth (I try to promote legal music, but everyone slips up, don't they?) But with the literal ease of downloading music, how do you not expect people to eschew going to the Virgin Megastore to fork over $17 when they can click a link and get the music they want? Why is the markup for downloading music so high? You mean to tell me that Joel Tenanbaum downloaded $675,000 of music?? If so, Metallica must be making classic albums these days (sarcasm). But in all honesty, what is the music industry gaining from these lawsuits? Let's just get real. CD's are a thing of the past and so is the time when file-sharing wasn't as ubiquitous as lines at the DMV. Why then, do you guys feel inclined to impose such steep penalties for something that damn near everyone under 30 has done? I guess the recession is hitting some of these artists harder than we thought. So much for it being just about the music...