jammie thomas

A federal jury in the United States has found a woman guilty of sharing copyrighted music online and ordered her to pay $222,000 in damages, in a key victory for the recording industry.

The jury on Thursday ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, of Minnesota, to pay six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they addressed in the case.




"This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our recordings is not OK," said Richard Gabriel, a lawyer for the music companies.

Thomas denied wrongdoing and testified that she didn't have a file-sharing account enabling her to illegally download copyrighted music.






The record companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.

Copyright violated

The record companies had alleged Thomas had shared 1,702 songs online, in violation of their copyrights.

The case against Thomas went to court after she rejected an offer from the recording companies to pay a few thousand dollars in fines.

In the first law suit of its kind to go to trial, the companies accused Thomas of downloading music files without permission and offering them online through Kazaa, a file-sharing account.

Record companies have filed about 26,000 lawsuits since 2003 over file-sharing, which has affected sales because it allows people to get music for free instead of paying for recordings.

Other defendants have settled cases by paying the companies a few thousand dollars.

Downloads rise

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which co-ordinates lawsuits against those who illegally download copyrighted music, says the number of households using file-sharing programs to download music has risen in recent years.

In April 2003, the number of file-sharing program users stood at 6.9 million monthly, before the lawsuits began, rising to 7.8 million in March 2007.

During the three-day trial, the record companies presented evidence they said showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name "tereastarr".

Their witnesses, including officials from an internet provider and a security company, testified that the internet address used by "tereastarr" belonged to Thomas.

Tough message

Toder said in his closing statement that the companies had failed to prove that "Jammie Thomas, a human being, got on her keyboard and sent out these things."

Thomas says she was wrongfully targeted by SafeNet, a contractor employed by the recording industry to patrol the internet for copyrighted material.

Gabriel said Thomas' defence had used "misdirection, red herrings [and] smoke and mirrors," and told jurors that a verdict against Thomas would send a message to others who downloaded copyrighted files illegally.

"I only ask that you consider that the need for deterrence here is great," he said.

Before the verdict, Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, said he was surprised it had taken so long for one of the industry's lawsuits against individual downloaders to come to trial.

Illegal downloads have "become business as usual, nobody really thinks about it," Sherman said.

"This case has put it back in the news. Win or lose, people will understand that we are out there trying to protect our rights." US woman has been fined $222,000 (�57,000) for illegally downloading and distributing 24 songs on the internet.

In the civil case, a jury in the US District Court of Minnesota yesterday found that Jammie Thomas infringed copyrighted song recordings, according to documents. The jury awarded damages of $9,250 for each of 24 recordings, or a total of $222,000, according to documents.

The case had been taken by a number of music companies including EMI Group's Capitol Records; Sony BMG Music Entertainment; Arista Records; Interscope Records; Warner Bros Records and UMG Recordings.

Media reports described the case as the first such file-sharing lawsuit brought by the music industry to go to trial.

The recording companies sued Ms Thomas in April 2006 after 1,702 music files were traced to a computer tied to her, according to court documents. Investigators on February 21st, 2005 located an individual with the screen name "tereastarr@KaZaA" using the Kazaa file-sharing software program, according to the documents.

"This individual was downloading copyrighted sounds recordings from other users of the Kazaa network, and was distributing copyrighted sound recordings stored on her computer to other Kazaa users," the plaintiffs said.

Ms Thomas, in documents, denied the allegations of the complaint "that relate to any allegations that she ever used any (peer-to-peer) network, including Kazaa."

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Minneapolis (MN) � 30-year-old Jammie Thomas lost big in the nation's jury decision for a file sharing case. The single mother of two was found liable in sharing 24 songs from six record companies and has been ordered to pay statutory damages of $220,000 or $9250 per song.

Record labels Sony BMG, Arista Records, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings, Capitol Records and Warner Brothers Records all claimed that Thomas downloaded and shared 1702 songs, but concentrated their case on the top 24 songs. Computer security experts, testifying on behalf of the record labels, said Thomas set up a Kazaa account under the username "Tereastarr" and shared the songs. They even said the username was traced back to an Internet Protocol address used by her computer.

Like many other file sharers targeted by the Recording Industry Association of America, Thomas first received a demand to settle for a few thousand dollars. She refused to settle and claimed that it wasn't her that downloaded the songs.

Perhaps the most interesting fact is that the original hard drive was never used to prove or disprove the charges. A few weeks after receiving RIAA's demand letter, Thomas replaced the drive because it had become, as she claimed, defective.

In the end the jury didn't buy this excuse and only took five hours on Thursday to decide Thomas' fate. While the damages are significant, the jury could have awarded far greater damages of up to $150,000 per song. The jury could have also awarded punitive damages on top of the $220,000.