RIAA settlement site promotes P2P file sharing

THE RIAA has been growling a bit at Google for making money on the P2P sites using its websense programme. The phrase "contributory infringement" has been bandied about.

However, as Wired points out it seems that the RIAA itself has been making cash from P2P sites in a similar way.

On the site that the RIAA registered to peddle its new "pre-lawsuit" settlement packages the outfit has put up a parked page that is full of ads pointing to all sorts of file sharing programs.

Some of the packages are nasty and contain adware and spyware. As Wired points out under the rules that the RIAA was thinking of using against Google, it means that it would have to sue itself for "contributory infringement".

The moment that Wired published this comment the RIAA took down the site. Fortunately Wired had some nice pictures to prove that it existed. We wonder how much cash the RIAA made promoting P2P programs while the site was running? We also wonder how many people were sued by the RIAA for using software that they thought was OK because it came from an RIAA site.

More here. µ