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Music Industry Wins Suit Against Fan

Minnesota woman ordered to pay $222,000 for downloading songs

October 5, 2007 

A federal court jury found Jammie Thomas infringed on the copyright of the various music labels involved.

The record companies sued Thomas last year after more than 1,700 music files were traced to a computer she may have used. They claim she used illegal peer-to-peer software to obtain the songs and share them with others.

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

Thomas, in court documents, denied the allegations. The jury disagreed, and awarded the plaintiffs $9,250 per song for the 24 music files cited in the complaint.

The recording industry has aggressively pursued online music piracy since its 2000 court victory over Napster, a wildly popular peer-to-peer music download service where users could trade songs.

The music industry has even sued students it suspected of illegally downloading songs and pressed college administrators to police students’ online activities.

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