How much do you owe to the RIAA? I owe nearly a Billion

The RIAA sucks. Period. After reading the Lawrence Lessig article I wondered how could RIAA justify some of their actions, especially with their whole "download music and we'll eat your children" mentality. It is disturbing to know that in America a seven year old girl could be fined more for downloading one CD than a docter who has amputated the wrong leg. Lessig's metaphor of the piracy issue being like a chimera is a good one. The piracy issue is alot more complicated than simply targeting the music downloaders and sueing them for everything they've got. I download music but i also buy CD's. I have films on my computer but i also watch the newest movies at imax. Its hard to say where the fine line is between "legitmate" and "illegitimate" consumption. Both extremes of this issue have majorly negative impacts. On one side of the spectrum is the RIAA considers 20% of the American population are criminals who should be sued $2 million for every CD they download, while on the other side of the spectrum are countries such as China. I remember when i went back to Beijing 2 years ago and tried to find a legitimate CD of my favourite chinese artist "Jay Chou" because there were special features on the disk that illegitimate copies didn't have. Unfortunately for me it took me nearly a day of searching to find one. It is hard to pick out the real copies from the fakes because the fakes look so real. Unfortunately it's because of extreme piracy that saw the regression of Hong Kong Cinema in late 1990's and early 2000 when awful, awful films such as "my wife is 18" and "black mask 2" were made (however Hong kong cinema seems to be back on track with amazing films like "Kung fu hustle" and "infernal affairs". None of the extreme reactions to piracy will work out well for consumers, muscians and producers. I agree with Lessig that we should pick a stance somewhere in between.