Seven college students in Maine were sued recently the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for illegally sharing music with Bit Torrent and P2P filesharing software such as Ares and Kazaa. These students, who can barely afford to pay for their own educations, were singled out for downloading music.

There are more cases to come. Astonishingly, since February, more than 3,700 students across the US have been issued letters giving them the option to settle out of court or else face copyright infringement lawsuits. Whatever way you look at it, these students are screwed, faced with settlements of at least $3,000.

Some students have settled out of court, while other have been sued. The music industry apparently can’t afford to turn a blind eye to penniless students getting free music downloads.

Industry research reveals that at least half of all students break copyright laws. Will the music industry sue every single student? What’s most frustrating for the students who end up being sued is that they simply plucked from the crowd to be made examples of.

The RIAA needs to lighten up.

If there was one artist who you’d have thought would get involved with music rights in the current climate it’s Moby. Although not acting directly for the benefit of music fans, Moby’s latest move is a bold step.

After listening to complaints from his buddies in the movie industry about how difficult and expensive it is to get permission from record labels to use music, Moby took matter into his own hands and is offering up a selection of tracks for free.

The free music comprises tracks from the albums Play, 18 and a number of unreleased pieces of typical Moby music.

The tracks are available for free from mobygratis.com. Moby has asked that filmmakers donate some money to charity if their films get distribution deals. Moby has also made it so that there is no way he can profit from this venture. He really is giving away his music for free.

All this comes just a few months before Moby’s next studio album is due for release. Expect it in stores March 2008.

After Radiohead threw a middle finger up at the music industry and released their seventh studio album, In Rainbows, online, many Internet pundits began talking of a revolution. Fans were asked to pay what they thought the album was worth.

Radiohead put the ball in the music fans’ court. So how much did these devoted music fans pay to download this great album? Well, most of them paid nothing at all.

More than 60% of people who downloaded the album chose to do so for free. The vast majority of Radiohead’s “fans” paid less than $4 for the album, while only 4% paid more than $12.

The US market was the most generous, with 40% of those who logged in prepared to pay for the album. Only 30% of people outside the US put up any money for the download.

With so many people choosing to download the album for free (paying only the 90-cent handling charge), one has to wonder why these people didn’t just get hooked up with Bit Torrent or with P2P filesharing services like Limewire or Ares. Why go to the trouble of paying the handling fee?

The digital music industry is booming. In Britain last week, the download singles sales record was broken, proving that there are still some people out there who don’t just want music for free. Analysts had been speculating that the era of singles sales was all but over, but with downloads becoming increasingly popular, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

An incredible 1.7 million downloads were sold last week, according to figures released by the Official UK Charts Company. The number one spot was taken by Leona Lewis, whose single “Bleeding Love” sold 218,000 copies, about half of which were downloads.

Despite grim predictions about the use of P2P filesharing software killing singles sales, the industry has been given a new injection of life. The doubters have been proved wrong.

“Just three years ago, skeptics forecast the death of the single but instead singles have gone from strength to strength. New digital music services have combined with existing music stores to give music fans unprecedented choice as to how they discover, sample and buy new music,” said Chief Executive of the British Phonographic Industry Geoff Taylor.

The good news for the music industry is that the singles sales appear to be about balanced between physical sales and downloads.

Music downloads are a fact of life now, and there is little that record labels can do to counter this. Despite record labels trying to implement scare tactics on the general public, there are those in the music industry who think that we should be able to download music without having to live in fear.

Veteran music producer Don Was is one such person. As he sees it, the music industry targeting music fans who illegally download songs using filesharing software like Ares is a waste of billions of dollars.

The money spent cracking down on downloaders could be used to, well, make better music and promote vitality in the music scene, says Don.

For those not familiar with Don Was, he has worked with everyone from Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and B B King, to Willie Nelson, Elton John and Ringo Starr.

Record labels have so far sued more than 26,000 people for illegal downloads, with most cases settled outside of court.

For someone like Don Was to step up and say we should be allowed to download music for free holds some weight behind it.