It is illegal to download one’s favorite music off of the internet without using a website that has been licensed to do so, but that has rarely stopped most people from downloading away.

However, one group, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has valiantly worked to protect the poor and starving recording artists around the country from these villains of the Internet. The problem for the RIAA is they discredit themselves by trying to punish people who fall quite a bit short of being the web pirates that are truly threatening the music industry.

The RIAA wants to dissuade those who partake in Internet piracy by finding the biggest offenders and suing them. So in that vein, the recording industry hunted down an internet user with the screen name “smittenedkitten,” a vile individual who was making nearly 700 pop, rap and rock songs available for download, and tracked that dangerous criminal down as being one Gertrude Walton.

Only problem is, the RIAA didn’t do quite enough detective work: Walton had been dead and buried well over a month before the RIAA claimed she was on the Internet providing others with all of that music.

That’s right: dead. I’m not a doctor and have never claimed to be one, but I would imagine that it is very difficult to use a computer once a person has passed away. However, as any good detective will tell you, it is possible that someone else was using Walton’s internet connection post mortem, which would explain this whole situation.

There is a problem with that theory though. Walton, who was 83 years old at the time of her death, was described by her daughter as someone who “hated computers.” Therefore, it would seem that Walton doesn’t exactly fit the mold of one of those dangerous internet pirates; in fact, she didn’t even have an internet connection for someone else to use after she was gone. So it would seem that the RIAA was barking up the wrong tree.

Mistakes happen, but this one could have been avoided before it got to be such a black eye for the RIAA. The recording industry warns those that they are about to sue with a letter before they file a lawsuit. When Walton’s daughter received the RIAA’s warning letter, she wrote back to let them know that they had probably made some error. The recording industry responded by filing suit.

“I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people,” Walton’s daughter Robin Chianumba told the AP. “I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park (where she is buried) to attend the hearing.”

Imagine that trial. Following the plaintiff’s arguments that are sure to be loaded with technical jargon about how the RIAA goes about finding the offenders and bringing forth their lawsuits it would be the defense’s turn to wow the jury. First they call Walton’s daughter who testifies that the 83-year old lady never owned a computer and probably wouldn’t have known how to use one.

After that emotionally charged testimony, they seal the deal by calling their second and final witness, the cemetery employee who buried Walton. Then in classic courtroom television drama the defense attorney slams his fist on the table and cries out that Walton couldn’t have committed the heinous crimes she was being accused of because she was stuck in the ground at that time.

Case closed. Judgment for the defendant.

Apparently the RIAA saw the impeding trial going much the same way and didn’t have any rookie lawyers to break in so it admitted that there had probably been some sort of mistake and that it would be dropping the charges.

With all of the other lawsuits that the RIAA has pursued in the past couple of years, it makes me wonder just how often the recording industry has used such shoddy work in determining who is out there distributing all of that music. Does it just toss lawsuits out there assuming that they will catch people who at one time or another have actually done something wrong? (I imagine on this campus there would be a large percentage of people who would be guilty of something.)

Instead of just accepting the lawsuits that the RIAA is dispensing, maybe people should start looking into just how their name came up in the “investigation.” Quite frankly, if the recording industry could peg Gertrude Walton as “smittenedkitten,” it is more than plausible that they haven’t always found the person that they were looking for.

Not only has the RIAA been trying to plug the hole in the dike with their fingers, but now they’re accusing the wrong people of committing the crimes. If the recording industry hopes to continue fighting piracy with any kind of legitimacy, they better start doing a little more research before they hand out anymore lawsuits.

Ryan Knickmeyer ([email protected]) is contributing sports editor.