Of the 26,000 people sued by the music industry for illegally downloading music online, only one has attempted to fight back.
Jammie Thomas refused to settle her case with the Recording Industry of America and six music labels, instead opting to go to court to claim that she was wrongly targeted by SafeNet, the company employed by the music industry to track down piracy offenders online.
Thomas insisted that she had never downloaded or uploaded her music to Kazaa, but the jury was swayed by the record labels' evidence.
Thomas has been ordered to pay $220,000 for the 24 songs in question which included Destiny's Child's Bills, Bills, Bills.
I think we all know that wasn't worth it.
Her lawyer told reporters that Thomas now has a legal bill of $60,000 because she "refused to be bullied". The fine itself would have been larger if the jury had found willful copyright infringement, but at $9,250 per song, things would a been far more dramatic if the the labels have sued for the full 1,702-song Kazaa collection.
Still, the labels probably thought $220,000 was about right for another scapegoat. Perhaps if they'd addressed the issue of their decaying business models more quickly, the situation would have been a little different?
Source: AFP
