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a subscriber who was allegedly distributing hundreds of songs online.

This makes it sound like the person was some kind of Big Player in all this, but it could be anyone who has "hundreds of songs" in the sharing directory on their computer. Based on some of the usage numbers I've seen for Kazaa, et. al., there could easily be ten million such people. This one could turn out to be some 12-year-old.

This whole thing is a case of lawyers running amok. Here they are conducting what amounts to a reverse lottery; they will never be able to go after even one per cent of the people who are doing this. Every once in a while, they will sue the parents of some teenager into bankruptcy, but they will not have made a dent in the problem. For how long will the courts let such nonsense go on? This is just lawyers raping and pillaging at random; they aren't doing anything to solve the business issues underlying the problem.

Is it right for people to be sending these songs around the Internet without paying for them? Of course not. But how does suing one person out of ten million do anything but piss people off? I can't believe how stupid and pig-headed these RIAA people are about trying to use lawyers to solve their business problem.

There is a new music distribution technology that is cheaper than the one they have now. They do not get to use lawyers to prevent its adoption. They can either adopt it themselves, and reduce their prices accordingly, or they can continue to watch their customers adopt it for them... and pay them nothing.

Is it right for people to be sending these songs around the Internet without paying for them? Of course not.

Says who?? I have downloaded MANY songs from this band, and yet, they still make TONS of money. They have a VERY reasonable trading policy.

I vote for a boycott on ALL artists and labels who encourage suing their former customers.

This whole thing is a case of lawyers running amok.

No, it's a case of the record companies trying to get the ISPs to do their work for them. Their goal is to get ISPs to crack down on people by making the ISPs life miserable if they don't.

The case just forced the ISP to cooperate with one person. The next step will be a court order requiring the ISP to keep track of everyone on their network that is involved in file sharing (and threaten them with a possible fine if they don't.)

Keeping track of people who may be illegally sharing copyrighted works is a huge task that would take tons of resources (and cash) to accomplish. The ISP will eventually install systems to prevent file sharing on their network all together (those that don't will be hounded by the record companies via the courts.)

The end results: even people that are legally sharing copyrighted (sharing with permission) or public domain works (don't need permission) will be stopped from sharing. And the record companies close another loophole in their music monopoly.