A Boy Named Sued

Jesse Jordan, a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, created the site ChewPlastic.com as a search engine for his campus's network. Unsurprisingly, but unfortunately for Jesse, there were some pirated MP3s on the network. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, that makes these search engines just like Napster, the file-trading network sued out of existence by the recording industry.

Now the RIAA has turned its team of lawyers on students, and Jesse, facing a legal juggernaut, settled for $12,000—his entire life savings. Of course, if we follow the RIAA's logic, Google is also fair game, since it too can be used to find copyrighted music. But Google might, you know, fight back or something. And taking on an opponent with the resources to challenge these bullying tactics is decidedly not part of RIAA's gameplan.