The Recording Industry Association of America is being sued for abusing the legal system for its war on piracy, civil conspiracy, deceptive trade practices, trespassing and computer fraud. Shahanda Moursy from North Carolina has demanded a trial against three major record labels, the RIAA and Mediasentry. Mediasentry, which has been dumped by the RIAA, provided a huge chunk of evidence against alleged copyright infringers.

Moursy is suing the RIAA saying that by using “concerted efforts and cartels, control or attempt to control the channels of creation, distribution, and sale of musical works throughout the United States and the world. They are not artists, songwriters, or musicians. They did not write or record the songs. For a number of years, a group of large, multinational, multi-billion dollar record companies, including these [record labels], have been abusing the federal court judicial system for the purpose of waging a public relations and public threat campaign targeting digital file sharing activities.”

It goes further to say that as part of this campaign of its “sham litigation programme”, the record labels enhance the intimidation factor by actually filing suit in a number of instances with no prior warning. It sates that these lawsuits are designed to attract media attention, and often do, as stories emerge of record labels' suits against the elderly, disabled, technologically clueless, and other vulnerable victims.

Many of these victims have no idea how to operate a computer, let alone how to install and use peer-to-peer networking software to exchange music they would not likely be listening to anyway. But actual innocence is rarely a consideration to the record labels.

Moursy's suit said that the record labels’ litigation campaign, its preceding demands, and illegal investigations, are part of a concerted pattern of sham litigation.