Brother, can you spare a dime for Aimster?

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Billboard) - AbovePeer, parent of peer-to-peer service Aimster - which is being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America and its member labels for copyright infringement - is asking its users to send voluntary payments to help defray legal costs. Aimster president Johnny Deep said there was no formal announcement of the request, which was posted Friday at Aimster.com. Deep said he hopes users will send in payments "somewhere in the range of $5-$10. If you take 100,000 people and they each give you $5-$10, then that's a sizable hunk of change." Aimster is using Amazon.com's secure credit-card transaction system for the effort. Aimster allows consumers to trade files among users on buddy lists. The RIAA suit claims that the software violates copyright law and is not restricted to list members.