On my way back home after the trip South of the border, I came across a CNN story about the growing number of lawsuits by the music industry against users violating the artists' copyrights.

The numbers are incredible:  477 more computer users sued yesterday, bringing the total number of actions filed to 2,454 lawsuits.  Out of those, 437 cases have reached a typical settlement of a $3,000 one time payment.

The article also mentions the growing number of universities and/or learning institutions being asked to provide names of students engaged in heavy MP3 file sharing, including the likes of Brown, Emory, Georgia Institute of Technology, Michigan State and Princeton, among others.

In a previous article, I have suggested an alternative parallel path for the music industry: selling the rights to the songs individually and allowing customers to create their own CDs in music stores, with the option of personalizing the cover and the shiny CD surface.  The selling points for such a solution are the extra level of personalization and the wider choice extended to the customer.  Creating a CD containing illegally copied music can be quite an arduous project, since it includes several hours to search and download the songs, which then need to be converted from MP3 to WAV files prior to them being burned on CDs.  Since these activities can be quite time-intensive, the opportunity for the music industry will still be on the table for the foreseeable future.