Woman Loses File-Sharing Court Battle; Must Pay $222,000
The record industry's new hustle? Suing the fans! 30 year old Minnesota woman, Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay fines of $222,000, after being found guilty for illegally sharing copywritten music files via Kazaa software. In the first case of it's kind, representatives from each Sony BMG, Arista Records, Interscope, UMG Recordings, Capitol Records and Warner Bros Records, alleged that Thomas, under the name "tereastarr" had used the Kazaa file-sharing software to share 1,702 songs illegally. While Thomas pleaded not guilty to the charges, saying she had never had an account with Kazaa, an internet security firm had proved otherwise. The court ordered her to pay $9,250 for each of 24 specific songs focused in on the case, for a total of $222,000 in damages. Since 2003, record companies have filed 26,000 lawsuits against illegal file-sharing, with many of the accused settling for a few thousand dollars. - Pizzo
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