The RIAA is out to protect only themselves and the record company monopoly. They don't give a crap about the artists. I would LOVE to see the record companies crash and burn and have each artist creating and distributing their own work independently. Wether via "shareware" style internet...
As to the question of going after downloaders, I don't see who they could even track them. Its one thing to go onto a file-sharing service and look at the huge collection someone is offering online, but there is no way they can know who downloaded from it. I don't think such records are kept...