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Comment by dpc050505 | Hacker News Reader

A law only matters when it's enforced. Who the fuck is going to go after me for downloading a few films and songs?

They did this during the napster era.

Indeed, back then there were headlines on Slashdot every day about the RIAA and Metallica band members suing random kids that downloaded music. Probably the only reason they don’t go after people often now is because people mostly use paid streaming instead of piracy, but that will surely change if piracy becomes more widespread again.

Didn't the RIAA completely ruin their reputation (along with the other AAs) by doing that? Now it seems like most people just equate them with a huge pile of lawyers in suits who care not about art.

Possibly an upgrade, then, since their early reputation was a huge pile of gangsters in leisure suits.

Who cares? Industry associations are there for building reputations, they’re there to wield collective power.

I don't have it on hand at the moment, but I think I saw something about how the victims of those lawsuits didn't actually end up paying. Might have been related to bankruptcy, and certain things being non-enforceable. Basically the RIAA cottoned on to it not being worth their time and money to ruin their public image for little to no return.

Edit: Still can't find it, but did find this EFF article covering a bunch of people who apparently settled for some amount. Haven't followed up on the people who took things to court yet. https://www.eff.org/wp/riaa-v-people-five-years-later

Edit 1: I think it might have just been a high-profile case or two that escaped paying, it seems there were oodles of people who did pay based on the EFF article.

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