A fascinating story of over-the-top copyright enforcement at The Register by Australian copyright lawyer (formerly in-house for ARIA, our RIAA) and music industry commentator Alex Malik.

Malik describes the case of a Sydney teenager being charged with “Aiding and abetting a criminal activity” for linking to files on a music sharing site. There is no evidence that the child profited from the linking, he was 13 at the time of the alleged offense, and any fool would have to presume that sending 8 AFP officers to raid his home is, well, staggering overkill.

Anyhoo, read the article. One has to wonder where all this is leading.

And once you’re done, go read more about the big picture of file sharing and the decline of record industry profits.