Traditionally they send people scare-letters ("pre-litigation letters")^ offering a settlement for downloading. If people decided to fight it, they usually get brought to court for downloading and "making available" (distinct from uploading). "Making available" has generally been thrown out, as the ill-defined crap that it is.
""The court agrees with the great weight of authority that section 106(3) is not violated unless the defendant has actually distributed an unauthorized copy of the work to a member of the public," wrote the judge in his order. "Merely making an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work available to the public does not violate a copyright holder's exclusive right of distribution.""
So basically they sue/sued people for downloading as well as some crap they made up.
Regardless, senseless pedantry. Here is a 'fixed' statement if you are terribly bothered: "That's nothing compared to the $150,000 or whatever per song downloaded and/or 'made available' the RIAA was going for."
""The court agrees with the great weight of authority that section 106(3) is not violated unless the defendant has actually distributed an unauthorized copy of the work to a member of the public," wrote the judge in his order. "Merely making an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work available to the public does not violate a copyright holder's exclusive right of distribution.""
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9932004-7.html
So basically they sue/sued people for downloading as well as some crap they made up.
Regardless, senseless pedantry. Here is a 'fixed' statement if you are terribly bothered: "That's nothing compared to the $150,000 or whatever per song downloaded and/or 'made available' the RIAA was going for."
^ http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N24/riaa/letter.pdf This example pre-litigation letter uses the phrasing: "distributed (i.e., by uploading) and/or reproduced (i.e., by downloading)"