Jury penalises music file-sharer
A court in the US has ordered a woman to pay $222,000 (£109,000) in damages for illegally file-sharing music.

The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 32, from Minnesota, to pay for offering to share 24 specific songs online - a cost of $9,250 per song.

Record companies said she had illegally shared a total of 1,702 songs.

Ms Thomas, who denied the charges, was the first person accused of illegal file-sharing who decided to fight the case in court.

Each year, millions of households illegally share music files, and the music industry takes it as a serious threat to its revenue.

About 26,000 lawsuits have been filed against alleged file-sharers, but most defendants settle privately by paying damages amounting to a few thousand dollars.

Industry defiant

However, contesting the charge and losing will cost Jammie Thomas almost a quarter of a million dollars.

Her lawyer, Brian Toder, told the Associated Press that Ms Thomas was reduced to tears by the verdict.

"This is a girl that lives from pay cheque to pay cheque, and now all of a sudden she could get a quarter of her pay cheque garnished for the rest of her life," he said.

The US record industry said people would understand the verdict.

Richard Gabriel, a lawyer for the music companies, said the verdict was important.

"This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our recordings is not okay," he told AP.

Our message is: we don't want to litigate - don't leave yourself exposed to litigation
John Kennedy, chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries

He said no decision had yet been made about what the record companies would do, if anything, to pursue collecting the money from Ms Thomas.

John Kennedy, chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries, which represents record labels, said they were "reluctant litigators".

"We do everything possible to persuade people not to leave themselves exposed to litigation. We educate, we warn, we even try and settle before a case gets to court."

He said he hoped the fine would prove a deterrent to others.

"Our message is: we don't want to litigate - don't leave yourself exposed to litigation," he added.

Do you think that Jammie Thomas should have received such a large fine? Are record companies right to pursue such cases? Send us your comments.

Record companies have cheated, not only their own artists, but the public out of of billions of dollars over the years. I am sorry that she lost.

Pure non-sense.

is her name really jammie?

I guess Prince is happy now...but that's off topic..

I find this quite sad...how a woman who lives paycheck to paycheck now has to spend the rest of her life paying off a record company for a few downloaded songs while other people can walk away from murder charges (if the money is good enough)...

It just shows where society's head is at...and if I was on that jury deciding that this woman had to pay THAT much...I couldnt even live with myself for the rest of my life...yes she was guilty but the punishment CERTAINLy does not fit the crime...shame on them...this just goes to show you how the world is coming to an end where certain members of society thinks this sort of punishment is justifiable

mehogeni said:

And you know so people on that jury done downloaded some stuff.