The RIAA's lawsuit campaign against individual file-sharers never quite seems to wrap up, and as long as the music labels continue filing their suits, stories about how the RIAA is a lying collection of lying liars (who lie) aren't going to die either.

Such a story came yesterday from Ray Beckerman, the lawyer who runs the Recording Industry vs. The People blog. Beckerman noted that the music labels had filed new cases in April, despite their claim to Congress (and Ars) that they had stopped "initiating new lawsuits" in August 2008. That claim, says Beckerman, was a "total fabrication," and the continued court filings prove it.

There aren't many of these "new" cases; Beckerman found three in New York. But why are they being filed at all?

It depends on what "new" means

The answer remains (as it has every time we've covered this issue) that the RIAA did not pledge to stop filing legal documents. The group's own definition of "new cases" does not include those that were already in process as "John Doe" cases or where settlement letters had already gone out.

This was the case in March, when the RIAA filed a case against an Omaha resident for file-swapping. Those hypocrites! But the case had been detected in 2007, a John Doe lawsuit was filed months later, and once the necessary account information was subpoenaed from the ISP, the John Doe suit was replaced with a named lawsuit in March 2009.

An RIAA spokesperson told us at the time that the issue was about fairness (though we raised some obvious questions about just how fair it was). "We're obviously pleased to transition to a new program going forward but that doesn't mean we can give a free pass to those who downloaded music illegally in the past," we were told. "How fair would it be to the thousands of individuals who took responsibility for their actions and settled their case while others are let off the hook? We're still in the business of deterrence and it must be credible."

We checked in with the RIAA about the cases filed in April and were told that the group is "making a diligent, good faith effort to settle existing cases (see Santangelo, for example). But in instances where the defendant flat-out refuses to accept responsibility for their actions and settle, or ignores repeated overtures, we have no choice but to move forward with the legal process. As we have said since December, no new cases are being filed."

The lawyers we've spoken with don't see any legal necessity for the labels to continue with these cases, but the labels have decided that they will press ahead with them, regardless.

The interesting questions

It does make one wonder just how many more of these lawsuits could yet be filed or converted to named suits. The RIAA has terminated its relationship with P2P investigator MediaSentry, but it appears to be reserving the right to bring every case identified by MediaSentry to completion. Most such cases are settled for a few thousand dollars, but we don't know how many outstanding cases there might be.

But the truly interesting question isn't about whether the RIAA will file a couple dozen more named lawsuits in the upcoming months—nor about whether the group will be "hypocritical" when it does so. No, the interesting questions are about whether existing lawsuits like the Joel Tenenbaum and Jammie Thomas cases will deal the legal campaign a fatal blow in court, and about just how well the RIAA is doing at lining up ISPs for its voluntary graduated response program.

This, after all, is the future as the RIAA sees it. The lawsuits are the past, but "three strikes and you're off the Internet" offers a way forward. Unfortunately for the music labels, ISPs are supremely skeptical. We give the idea a few more months before the labels basically abandon the voluntary approach and try to lean on Congress—probably the only realistic way to convince ISPs to disconnect paying customers.

But as the Time Warner Cable data caps issue showed, nothing makes the grassroots angrier than a massive corporation interfering with their Internet. And nothing gives a Congressman or Senator more incentive to stand up to corporations than an angry mob of voters.