I just saw this story on Reason Hit & Run.

It seems that the RIAA sued a college student out of his life savings ($12,000) for building a campus network search engine that some people used to locate copyrighted material in addition to other things.

Intellectual property rights is a complicated problem. I don’t know the perfect solution, but I’m confident that it’s not to attack people who build useful tools; and certainly not to pick victims who are unable to defend themselves (rather than, say, Google).

This intimidation will not solve the problem, and will generate much more hostility than sympathy for the RIAA and its position.

I hope the young man recovers the $12,000 from supporters.

UPDATE: Good News! It looks like he has recovered the $12,000 from donations. People are cool.