b.cognosco

They might give it a shot -- legal or no. They're practically insane over their loss of control. And they really only pay attention to the law when it works in their favor anyway. But it sure could get ugly if they start stuff like this. There's no evidence they're smart enough to pull it off, and you shouldn't get into a battle of wits when you have no ammunmition.

Mean Tech For Thwarting Music Piracy. CBS News May 3 2003 5:37PM ET

Some of the world's biggest record companies, facing rampant online piracy, are quietly financing the development and testing of software that would sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people who download pirated music, according to industry executives cited by The New York Times in a story on its Web site prepared for its Sunday editions.

[...] A program the Times describes as "more malicious," dubbed "freeze," locks up a computer system for a certain duration — minutes or possibly even hours — risking the loss of data that was unsaved if the computer is restarted. It also displays a warning about downloading pirated music. Another program under development, called "silence," scans a computer's hard drive for pirated music files and attempts to delete them. One of the executives briefed on the silence program said to the Times that it did not work properly and was being reworked because it was deleting legitimate music files, too. [...] [Moreover - IP and patents news]