The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is waging a “reign of terror” against “defenseless people” in its efforts to prosecute people for illegal music downloads. So says Ray Beckerman, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the law firm of Vandenberg & Feliu in New York. Best known for his Recording Industry vs the People blog, Beckerman made the comment during a conference call yesterday organized by the Defective By Design campaign.

During the call, whose purpose was to raise awareness and to create a defence fund against the RIAA, Beckerman described what he alleges are the typical tactics used by the RIAA in suing individuals in the United States and other countries, and two of the cases that might become landmarks in the struggles against the RIAA’s actions.

According to Beckerman, the RIAA has brought 19,000 cases against private individuals. “You have a multi-billion-dollar cartel suing all sorts of people who have no resources whatsoever to withstand these litigations,” Beckerman says. His concern is that “due to the adversarial nature of justice, the RIAA will be successful in rewriting copyright law,” particularly if the technological community does not resist.

Source: NewsForge