The music industry isn't quite as dumb as it looks. After years of suing sick children, elderly grandmothers and dead people for downloading music, the RIAA is abandoning all future legal action against individuals. 

The RIAA has opened legal proceedings against 35,000 people since 2003 (including my ex-gf) yet it's become clear that the threats did absolutely nothing to stem the decline of album sales worldwide. So what are they doing instead?

Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

Yeah, I got one of those letters once for downloading Entourage. It was a tagged torrent file and the letter was sent to everyone who downloaded it. Nothing happened after that. I predict this will go nowhere. You're going to shut off my service because I download stuff? Please, these providers couldn't afford to lose the business in this economy. People will just switch to another ISP and start all over again.

This is a great day for everyone. This marks the end of an era that includes 18 dollar CDs and 35 dollar blu-ray movies sold in stores. Everything is moving online, and it's stunning it took the RIAA a decade to figure it out.