The Recording Industry Association of America set out to make an example of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, but made a martyr out of her instead.

Thomas-Rasset is famous because she is the first person brought to trial by the RIAA in the “file-sharing” lawsuits. The original settlement in the case was a whopping $200,000, but was increased to almost $2 million in the retrial.

Even if you count all 1,700 songs Thomas-Rasset is accused of downloading, there’s no logic behind such a massive fine. It’s not like she was masterminding a piracy ring that leaked albums months before release and damaged sales.

The RIAA’s barbaric bullying tactics have failed to stop people from downloading music illegally and the $1.9 million the RIAA might recover from suing one person – if the defendant actually can come up with that much money in her lifetime – doesn’t outweigh the horrific publicity the organization has received.

How many people sped on their way to work today? What if the police decided to fine one person out of the group almost two million dollars, hand out a few hundred tickets at $3,500 a pop, and then let the other 99.9 percent of the offenders get away free? It doesn’t make any sense. Why should one person’s life be destroyed over a crime that millions of people committed?

The RIAA hasn’t made a statement against piracy. The group is only proving to the public that it only cares about making money and doesn’t care about its patrons. If the RIAA didn’t have a monopoly on major-label music, the music-buying public could – and likely would – boycott the organization’s products.

Fortunately for the public, record label EMI has been considering pulling out of the RIAA for poorly representing the interests of the industry since January of last year. If record labels would back out of the RIAA, it would make a boycott possible.

Now we’re left with a dilemma with Tomas-Rasset. Should the millions of people who have illegally downloaded music at any point in the past decade send her a few dollars to help pay the excessive fine she’s facing? However, if they do, the RIAA gets their money like a schoolyard bully beating up kids for their lunch money. Thomas-Rasset is that kid who got singled out everyday. Almost every other kid on the playground has lunch money, so why is the RIAA picking on her?

With this kind of behavior, it won’t be long before the RIAA runs out of friends.