Declare Victory and issue a press release - that seems to be what the RIAA is up to today:

Nearly a year after the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling against online music file-sharing services, the CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America says unauthorized song swapping has been "contained."

"The problem has not been eliminated," says association CEO Mitch Bainwol. "But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat."

Translation: "We've been unable to stop Bittorrent, PirateBay is still online, and the bad press from our lawsuit strategy is starting to smell. Meanwhile, we noticed that Apple is actually making money with the iTunes store, even with all the roadblocks we've thrown at it."

As Bugs Bunny would say, what a bunch of maroons. CD sales are still dropping, and it took a non-music industry effort (Apple) to smack them with the reality of the download model. They think that their lawsuit strategy worked:

Garland says the RIAA has made some inroads. "They have removed the profiteers from online piracy," he says. "They've also embarked on a very successful education campaign. Kids now know about copyright, and the consequences."

The RIAA has sued just over 18,000 individuals for sharing songs online, with 4,500 settling for about $4,000 per case.

18,000 is a lot of bad word of mouth. I suspect that they'll see that strategy as the brain dead move it was, eventually.