Music Industry Wins Illegal Downloading Case

Associated Press
Friday, October 5, 2007; Page D02

DULUTH, Minn., Oct. 4 -- The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found that a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music online and levied $222,000 in damages against her.

The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs.

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Thomas and her attorney, Brian Toder, declined to comment as they left the courthouse.

In the first such lawsuit to go to trial, the record companies accused Thomas of downloading the songs without permission and offering them online through Kazaa, a file-sharing program. Thomas denied wrongdoing and testified that she didn't have a Kazaa account.

Record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits alleging file-sharing since 2003. File-sharing has hurt music sales because it allows people to get recordings for free. Many other defendants have settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars.

Copyright law sets a damages range of $750 to $30,000 per infringement, or up to $150,000 if the violation was "willful."

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