US Court Orders Woman to Pay £109,000 for Music Downloads

When Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old from Minnesota, downloaded Rhythm is Gonna Get You by Gloria Estefan on a free file sharing website, she couldn't have realized how prophetic the title was. This week, in the first case of music piracy to reach a federal jury, she was ordered to pay $9,250 for that song alone to the record company whose copyright she had infringed.

She had to pay the same figure for each of a further 23 songs she downloaded, including the equally apt Run Baby Run by Sheryl Crow and Reba McEntire's One Honest Heart. The total damages against her came to $222,000 (£109,000), the largest judgment to date against a consumer of illegal downloads.

The result was welcomed by the Record Industry Association of America, which represents six music labels prosecuting the case.

"This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our recordings is not OK," the lawyer leading the case for the music companies, Richard Gabriel, said.

The case has been closely watched by record industry executives waging an uphill struggle to preserve their profit margins at a time when illegal downloads are reported to be occurring at a level 10 times greater than that of paying digital sales.

The RIAA has brought 20,000 lawsuits in the past four years, according to the technology magazine Wired, though most have been settled out of court.

The case generated heavy traffic on blogs and websites, with Ms Thomas, a worker on a Native American reservation, taking on the mantle of a victimized hero.

"A verdict of $222,000 for infringement of 24 song files worth a total of $23.76?" was the reaction of the blog Record Industry versus the People. "It is an outrage."

Ms Thomas denied in court that she had used the Kazaa online file sharing service. But the prosecution told the jury that, under the user name tereastarr, she had presented 1,700 songs for swapping.