Last week the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that college students will join children, single moms, grandparents and the deceased as subjects of copyright infringement lawsuits.

In an effort to discourage piracy on college campuses the RIAA is pledging to sue as many students in the next three months as they have in the last three years.

College students are an important market for the record labels. Instead of trying to scare students into stopping piracy, the RIAA should offer positive alternatives.

Since the lawsuits began, album sales have continued to decline and digital music sales have not made up the difference. In that same time period illegal downloading has continued, if not grown.

Individual lawsuits against file sharers have not been an effective deterrent and it seems unlikely that escalating the practice will make a difference. The cases the RIAA peruses are not always clear-cut. Last month a judge ruled against the RIAA in a case where someone else used the defendant's unprotected wireless connection to pirate music.

Targeting college students is troublesome because many students will not have the resources to effectively defend themselves against these suits.

The RIAA has not targeted Penn State students yet, but more lawsuits are expected. The university already takes money from student's technology fees to pay for Napster, a service that goes unused by many students because of its restrictions. So far the lawsuits have been most successful in garnering the ire of its customers.

Technology blog Gizmodo is launching a boycott of RIAA artists this month as a response to the lawsuits and other actions by the trade organization.

Instead of suing students, the RIAA should be improving its business model to allow online services to better compete with file sharers.

Last month Apple CEO Steve Jobs called for the record labels to begin distributing music without digital rights management (DRM) technology because it has proven ineffective in stopping piracy.

DRM-free music services would allow people to use Napster and iTunes across a wide variety of computers and portable music devices, including iPods and Zunes.

Instead of suing college students for money the companies clearly don't need, perhaps the RIAA should be working with students to figure out how to make buying music more appealing.