[killjoy]

3) mp3 sucks anyway, due to its inherent lossy compression; listening to most "ripped" music is almost akin to listening to it over the telephone. Even at the highest copy resolutions commonly available, the reduced frequency response, separation, and harmonics, along with other artifacts of digitizing, are objectionable to the discerning listener using decent equipment. Music copied from Broadcast FM, well recorded from a clean signal, blows away the sound quality of any consumer music digitizing scheme.

If the quality is so bad, why is the RIAA suing their customers over it?

[timberlandko]

If the quality is so bad, why is the RIAA suing their customers over it?

Quality has nothing to do with it; the crime is making the copyrighted intellectual property freely available for unlicensed distribution - that very simple point seems impossible for some folks to get a grip on. It isn't the music, it isn't the copying, it isn't the listening, its the illegal distribution.