by George Ziemann

With all the fear and loathing going on, it's easy to miss the fact that the RIAA's enforcement program has really gone nowhere so far.

So far, they've tried to obtain subpoenas for almost 2000 individuals, accusing them of copyright infringement. That only leaves 59.998 million file sharers to go.

They're obviously not very serious about this at all. Or they are incompetent.

Put yourself in Mitch "Itchy" Bainwol's shoes. If I were misguided enough to pursue this line of action as diligently as the RIAA has been, I would have sued about 50,000 people by now. It would be in the news each and every day -- more suits, more filings, more accusations.

"Sure, it would be expensive," I would convince the labels, "but either we get serious or give it up. You want to sue the rest of the demographic or not? Sales in the below-20 age group are already slipping. Come on, they'll forget all about this in 30 or 40 years and everything will be great again."

Get as many cases pushed through and collect as many settlements as possible before it becomes necessary to actually prove their case in court. From a purely capitalist perspective, this is the way to go.

59.998 million file sharers to go. Should be like shooting fish in a barrel.

But they're not doing that.