For reference that's $9,250 for each of the 24 songs she was alleged to have made available!

WTF?

From wired.com
DULUTH, Minnesota -- Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two, was found liable Thursday for copyright infringement in the nation's first file-sharing case to go before a jury.

Twelve jurors here said the Minnesota woman must pay $9,250 for each of 24 shared songs that were the subject of the lawsuit, amounting to $222,000 in penalties.

They could have dinged her for up to $3.6 million in damages, or awarded as little as $18,000. She was found liable for infringing songs from bands such as Journey, Green Day, AFI, Aerosmith and others.

After the verdict was read, Thomas and her attorney left the courthouse without comment. The jurors also declined to talk to reporters.

The verdict, coming after two days of testimony and about five hours of deliberations, was a mixed victory for the RIAA, which has brought more than 20,000 lawsuits in the last four years as part of its zero-tolerance policy against pirating. The outcome is likely to embolden the RIAA, which began targeting individuals in lawsuits after concluding the legal system could not keep pace with the ever growing number of file-sharing sites and services.

Still, it's unlikely the RIAA's courtroom victory will translate into a financial windfall or stop piracy, which the industry claims costs it billions in lost sales. Despite the thousands of lawsuits -- the majority of them settling while others have been dismissed or are pending -- the RIAA's litigation war on internet piracy has neither dented illegal, peer-to-peer file sharing or put much fear in the hearts of music swappers.

According to BigChampagne, an online measuring service, the number of peer-to-peer users unlawfully trading goods has nearly tripled since 2003, when the RIAA began legal onslaught targeting individuals.

At the time, BigChampagne says, there were about 3.8 million file sharers trading over the internet at a given moment. Now, the group has measured a record 9 million users trading at the same time. Roughly 70 percent of trading involves digital music, according to BigChampagne.

The case, however, did set legal precedents favoring the industry.

In proving liability, the industry did not have to demonstrate that the defendant's computer had a file-sharing program installed at the time that they inspected her hard drive. And the RIAA did not have to show that the defendant was at the keyboard when RIAA investigators accessed Thomas' share folder.

Also, the judge in the case ruled that jurors may find copyright infringement liability against somebody solely for sharing files on the internet. The RIAA did not have to prove that others downloaded the files. That was a big bone of contention that U.S. District Judge Michael Davis settled in favor of the industry.

Thomas maintained that she was not the Kazaa user "Tereastarr," whose files were detected by RIAA's investigators. Her attorney speculated to jurors that she could have been the victim of a spoof, cracker, zombie, drone and other attacks.

The jury found her liable after receiving evidence her internet protocol address and cable modem identifier were used to share some 1,700 files. The hard drive linked to Kazaa on Feb. 21, 2005 -- the evening in question -- did not become evidence in the case.

According to testimony, Thomas replaced her hard drive weeks after RIAA investigators accessed her share file and discovered 1,702 files. The industry sued on just 24 of those files.
Update: The attorney for the record companies, Richard Gabriel, spoke to reporters outside the courthouse. He said the the music industry will continue to sue copyright infringers, and warned that the nearly quarter-million dollar judgment carries a message for peer-to-peer users.

Her first mistake:

Kazaa

Very true ... still sick though.

Insanity. I can understand a fine (really, if someone is going to share copyright music without taking precautions to mask their identity, that's just asking for it), but that amount is way too much. $9000+ for each song? That's crazy.

I bet the whole lawsuit against her cost more than the judgment. The RIAA claims the lose billions to piracy, but I bet they lose just as much to suing individuals. Stuff like this is never going to put an end to music sharing.

Well imo the RIAA thinks they are stopping piracy by making examples of people like this when in fact they are just alienating their users more and more.

It's no wonder bands like Radiohead are starting to break away with labels that are members of the RIAA

The RIAA are deluded in my opinion. Putting a stop to piracy is impossible. They can make as many examples as they want, but one person here or one person there doesn't impress anyone when there are millions, if not billions, of people sharing files. Like you said, they're just alienating everyone.

It will be interesting to see where all this leads in 10 or so years.

Yup.
As Eilt stated, when it comes down to it, piracy is going to always be prevalent. The only way that I can think that they are going to be able to get through encryption, international sharing sites, and the internet freedom is to simply say it is punishable by death. Some people might take a step back at that point in time. But that isn't going to happen, so who are we kidding?

And I pity this woman. She was "made an example" and guess how many people stopped file sharing? She wasn't made an example, she just had some bad mojo come her way.

How long until the next person is made an example? I predict it's awhile, since most people who weren't careful before are careful now.

It's like some people haven't heard of encryption before....