Here's some more detail about the RIAA legal attacks on four students recently: http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/05/06/191207.shtml?tid=188&tid=141&tid=99&tid=123 and some more on one of the students web pages: http://www.chewplastic.com/ In fact it turns out that he was just running a search engine that indexed any files available on windows shares on the local network. You could search for any type of file; as you might expect some of the files users searched for and downloaded were mp3 files. But I don't see how they can claim he is guilty of contributory infringement anymore than google! Jeeze. So in the previous slashdot thread on the same topic, there were a number of people calling for a fund to be setup that people could donate to to defray the legal expenses and settlements. (The settlements were between $12k and $17kk). Do any of our legally qualified list members know if it is legal to collect money to reimburse a defendant against a settlement in a politically unpopular case. The students apparently admitted no guilt if it helps. I'm thinking all it takes is a paypal account, and a post to slashdot and their expenses would probably be covered. The remainder if any should got to the anti-RIAA lobby; ie whichever of the online rights lobbying groups that is mostly robustly defending against DMCA excesses. Adam