An American woman whose duaughter allegedly illegally downloaded thousands of dollars worth of songs is suing the major record labels, accusing them of racketeering, fraud and illegal spying. Tanya Andersen says the companies use unlicensed private investigators who "have illegally entered the hard drives of tens of thousands of private American citizens". I can't comment on the merits of her case, but I can say that it seems the record companies are getting desperate. It's no longer a fight for the rights of the artists who are being denied their due by illegal downloading, it's a battle for survival. What the record companies don't want to acknowledge is that their hey-day is over, and more often than not now they are simply getting in the way between consumers and the people who make music. There's not much they can do for a musical act that the artists can't do for themselves far cheaper, more efficiently and with more conviction. People can create and market their music on the internet - and they can sell it for half what the record companies charge and still make a lot more than their current share of the pie. I think it's quite amusing, because the situation could have been very different if the industry had embraced downloading a long time ago. A lot of people who would have gladly paid a fair price for their music a decade ago, now continue to download if for nothing simply as a way of saying "up yours" to the major music companies. If the people who write and perform the songs are angry about this, they should be angry at the record companies, not at the punters.