RECORDING INDUSTRY Will anti-pirating suits spark backlash?

The mother of a 12-year-old has agreed to settle the child's case for $2,000.
LOS ANGELES -- The recording industry has taken its piracy fight directly to music fans, suing more than 200 people this week alone. Now comes the hard part: Persuading the very people it has threatened with legal action to revisit music stores or to sample legal downloading services.
It might prove difficult to do so, some observers say, because the industry's lawsuit campaign could spark a consumer backlash spurred by the discontent many music fans already feel over soaring CD prices and the reduction of retailers offering varied music titles.
"The real hope here is that people will return to the record store," said Eric Garland, CEO of BigCampagne LLC, which tracks peer-to-peer Internet trends. "The biggest question is whether singling out a handful of copyright infringers will invigorate business or drive file-sharing further underground, further out of reach."
Jason Rich, of Watervliet, N.Y., said the record companies' campaign prompted him to stop downloading music from file-sharing networks, but he called the issue "disconcerting."
"I think it's kind of silly to go after individuals," said Rich, 26. "There are so many Web sites out there, people don't know necessarily they're doing anything wrong."
Settlements
Some of the music fans caught in the piracy net cast by the recording industry took steps Tuesday toward settling the copyright infringement lawsuits levied against them for sharing song files over the Internet.
The industry sued 261 people Monday and has promised to sue hundreds more in coming weeks as it strives to stamp out music piracy it blames for a three-year slump in CD sales.
The Recording Industry Association of America settled the first of the suits Tuesday for $2,000 -- with the mother of a 12-year-old defendant, Brianna LaHara of New York. Brianna was accused of downloading more than 1,000 songs using Kazaa.
RIAA Vice President Matt Oppenheim said he was not surprised to see young and old alike caught in the industry's snare.
"We know that there are a lot of young people who are using these services and we totally expected that we would end up targeting them," Oppenheim said. "As we have said from the beginning ... there is no free pass to engage in music piracy just because you haven't come of age. We're not surprised and we're not deterred."