(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
Downloading or reproducing recorded music without paying is petty thievery. It's not a right you possess any more than going into a store and lifting something off the shelf. When one engages in that activity, many persons in the vertical market, are deprived of the profit they deserve for their effort in producing the recording. So, as you well know, the RIAA is not trying to prevent peopple from listening to music at home, just trying to prevent them from "stealing" it.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry. Its mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes members creative and financial vitality. Its members are the record companies that comprise the most vibrant national music industry in the world. RIAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States.
They are not 'thugs' as you describe them.
http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/default.asp
Get real. The RIAA is going after people who obtain or copy music illegally. They aren't going after people "just listening to music at home."
Nobody has an automatic right to own copies of copyrighted music for which they haven't paid.
Artists have a right to control the licensing of their copyrighted material.
Copyrighted music is property. Conservatives have huge measures of respect for others' property. Respect it or be prepared to suffer the consequences.
File-sharing should be done the American way: ripping friends' disks!
"People who want to listen to music at home" is the target market of those who invest money to produce the CD. Let them pay for the product.
No, they are going after people for being thieves.
However, getting this lady to agree to delete the files in question off of the computer and issuing a warning not to let it happen again should have been sufficient unless they found she was doing a pirating business or something with the files, which apparently she was not.
How come they never went after people who taped songs off the radio onto cassettes way back when? I'm sure it was because it would be impossible to find people who did this, but my point is that the music industry never made a big deal out it.