RIAA Changing Tactics? no more lawsuits

It's a rather good move on the RIAA's part to do this. Their tactic pissed off even people who would normally agree with them going after people who steal others work. Many years back when this first started, a co-worker and I were discussing the RIAA's tactic in which she said "Don't talk to me about it, I get pissed off with how people steal others work" or something to that matter. About six months later, she was tearing apart the RIAA and I found out she felt it was ridiculous that they were going for huge lawsuits (30,000+) on grand parents, single mothers, etc. it wasn't just the fact that some of these people may have been innocent (e.g. Grandchild comes to visit said grandparent, downloads program without grandparent knowing, gets music, then gets them in trouble) but the sheer amount as well. All in all, it just made people hate the RIAA 1000 times more.
Worse, their tactic may very well have more or less reduced sales. Not too much, but basically very few people suddenly went back to buying CDs as supposedly (this can definitely be argued) many went by the 'if I don't have the money to buy it, I won't get it at all'. However, others got pissed off enough that they boycotted the RIAA. Not saying it was much, but it was something.
The interesting part in all of this is from what I read, the RIAA didn't see the 'error in it's ways' but rather they are feeling the economic crunch as well and can't afford the lawsuits. And given that many have a hard time pay the 3000 dollar settlements that the RIAA has been dishing out, having them pay their court fees on top of it with those people having issues due to the economy as well would result in more cases where the RIAA not getting all it's money back.

This new tactic is that all that new and will be interesting. in truth, it's more of "We are low on money because of the economy/poor CD sales/us alienating those who would buy our product, so let's put the time, work, money and effort on the ISP's with the threat that we will sue THEM instead.". Not exactly the worst plan either as they can have one lawsuit instead of many smaller ones for a much larger payoff corresponding to the idea that the ISP is letting 'mass piracy go through' if they collect data on several individuals download music. Cuts down on court costs and in effect may put the pressure they want on ISP's.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The only problem is that the RIAA could state that if the ISP doesn't do something (i.e. cutting the individual's service), that they are 'willfully allowing' individuals to download music and bring them to court. Again, that would be less expensive for the RIAA (one suit) but with much higher ramifications (showing multiple users downloading music hence upping the amount). If the RIAA could place that type of pressure on ISPs, then the ISPs may feel "Hey, we'd rather lose business of say, 1000 customers than paying millions in fees".

There's nowhere I can't reach.