Heather Newman at the Detroit Free Press reports that the damages sought by the RIAA in just one of the four lawsuits they filed on April 3 against college students total the unbelievable sum of $97.8 million (incorrectly stated as trillion in the article). This calculation results from multiplying the maximum damages per copyright violation ($150,000) times the over 625,000 songs the RIAA contends were pirated. The RIAA has certainly chosen an attention grabbing strategy in a campaign that will probably not be limited to actions against college students alone.
See also this article on Princeton student Dan Peng ’05 who was sued by RIAA.