Could the RIAA shut down the Internet?

The Recording Industry Association of America has filed a lawsuit in a case of Electro vs. Barker which has the potential to shut down significant parts of the Internet.  This case focuses on a nurse who is alleged to have made a folder containing certain files available online and the RIAA’s view is that this constitutes a copyright infringement.  Should the RIAA be successful, it could have a dramatic effect on the Internet as the end result could well be a finding that any form of file sharing is copyright infringement.  File sharing is essential to the operation of the Internet itself.  Web pages that you view through your browser are made up of files that are shared on public servers.  Any finding that file sharing on the Web is inherently a copyright infringement will pretty much mean that the Web is illegal.

There is a pretty interesting transcript of an interview with an attorney, Ray Beckerman, on DefectivebyDesign.org (an initiative of the Free Software Foundation).  Beckerman represents defendants in many cases launched by the RIAA.  You can listen to the interview by either downloading the audio file or listening to the interview via streaming audio.

The RIAA is widely regarded to be on a crusade to prosecute claims against anyone who may vaguely be regarded as being a copyright infringer.  There are instances of people who have been sued for copyright infringement and they have never been in possession of digital media, let alone protected digital media.

(Source: Dvorak Uncensored)