ABC News and TechTV are reporting that the most significant outcome of the civil suit that the Recording Industry Association of America filed against Rensselaer freshman Jesse Jordan is that Jesse had to drain his savings account in order to pay off the negotiated out-of-court settlement.

Jesse is one of the latest victims of the high-profile legal offensive by the RIAA. The RIAA is attempting to stop the sharing of MP3s (digital music files) because they believe that the availability of recorded music on the Internet has reduced album sales througout the world.

It is obvious from this article, and from the transcript of an interview that CNN did with Jesse and his father several weeks ago, that Jesse's treatment was meant to be an example to other college students who might consider operating Internet services that could be used to find MP3s that have been uploaded to campus computer networks.