Silverwolf's Auditorium

From Techdirt:

Earlier this year, a court agreed to examine whether or not the fines the RIAA is asking for in its lawsuits against people accused of file sharing is constitutional (that whole "cruel and unusual" bit). The RIAA, in response, has fought hard to keep from revealing any information about how much a download really costs, but a judge isn't having any of that and has ordered the RIAA in the UMG v. Lindor case to turn over the data.

Anyone who is unbiased on these issues will tell you that the numbers the RIAA is seeking (and in one case was awarded) are clearly ridiculous.  Songs sell for 0.99 each on iTunes and any demand for more than three times that is extremely excessive.

Downloading 24 songs from the Internet should be a $72.00 fine, but in this case the RIAA was awarded over $200,000 from a single mother.  Would any unbiased person anywhere say that isn't excessive ?