A DOZEN teenagers are inside the Clonmel campus of Tipperary Institute for Schoolworks 2007 and if their predominant attitude doesn't mellow during their college years, a few of them are ripe for lawsuits related to ripped content. Simply stated, they grew up with Bebo, MySpace and easy MP3 access. They buy some music but share the experience more than I ever did as a teen because their sharing is jammed deep into their ears with gigs of tracks in their backpacks. If they head to the States for an academic year, they will certainly climb to the uppermost reaches of file-sharing space and once there, they could encounter the suits that protect the licensed artists. The RIAA has sued thousands of college students since 2003 and it's a little unusual for Ireland to avoid a high profile lawsuit related to music downloads. The industry's latest tactic is a page borrowed from debt collection agencies--start with an invoice for payment that leads to a negotiated settlement. If the recording industry keeps chasing its customers with lawsuits, it would seem logical to target Ireland before the end of this decade because if the Transition Year students I see are any indication, college campuses won't know the meaning of licensed music by the start of the next decade.
Ellen Lee -- "Record industry introduces new strategy to combat illegal file sharing"
Mixfits 16 -- 18.1 MB 96 kbps MP3 file of Transition Year favourites.
