Yesterday, the RIAA acted swiftly to try and avert a public relations disaster, after it found itself suing a 12 year old girl from a New York housing project. The maximum penalty the girl could have faced was a fine of $150m (American copyright laws have the potential of fining $150,000 per infringement, and the girl had over 1,000 songs on her computer). Realising that this would lead to more questions being asked of their recent crusade, the RIAA quickly settled with the girl's family. The girl's mother will pay a $2,000 fine to the RIAA. Brianna Lahara, the girl in question, said this to reporters:

I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love.

I don't know if the RIAA has been asked how much of this $2,000 will go to the artists. Wearing my British Cynic Hat (standard issue for all citizens), I guess that most, if not all of that sum will go into the pockets of the RIAA's lawyers.

Which brings us to another question: what is the RIAA going to do with all this money it's collecting? Will they give some to the artists, and if so, how are they going to divide it up? A simple tally of how many times the artists appears in people's shared lists (in which case, remove all your Phil Collins and Celine Dion MP3s now)? What happens if we're sharing bootlegs? Giving more cash to Orrin Hatch, so he can continue to make stupid statements? We need to know!

Oh, and while the record companies huff and puff, they're not adverse to using the file-sharing networks for their own purposes.