Results of the newly released study at FindLaw are hardly surprising. 56 percent of Americans disapprove of the RIAA lawsuits against individual file-sharers, while only 37 percent approve. Seven percent are undecided.

"A majority of Americans say the music industry should not sue people who illegally download music off the Internet, according to a new poll by the legal Web site FindLaw (www.findlaw.com). Still, legal experts say the industry's suits have legal merit and urge consumers to be aware of copyright laws and their legal rights before downloading from any Web site."

I'm sorry to inform a law site of this basic fact, but the suits are not about downloading at all. They are about supplying P2P networks with downloadable material. If this lawyerly group can't grasp the basic issue at hand, how credible is the study? But the real issue here is probably the superlative obfuscation perpetrated by the music industry, which has blurred the lines between supplying and downloading and failed to clarify the point to the media. Now, even lawyers (though what quality of lawyers is unclear) are fooled.