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June 19, 2009

A US jury has ordered a 32-year-old woman to pay $US1.92 million ($A2.4 million) in damages for illegally downloading 24 songs in a high-profile digital piracy case.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother of four from the US state of Minnesota, was found liable for using the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing network to download the songs over the internet.

The jury took just under five hours to reach its verdict.

It ordered Thomas-Rasset to pay $US1.92 million dollars - or $US80,000 ($A100,000) per song - to six record companies: Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Bros. Records and UMG Recordings.

Thomas-Rasset had been convicted previously, in October 2007, and ordered to pay $US220,000 ($A275,000) in damages but the judge who presided over that trial threw out the verdict calling it "wholly disproportionate" and "oppressive".

The Recording Industry Association of America and major music labels have brought suit against thousands of people for illegally downloading and sharing music, with most agreeing to settlements of between $3000 and $5000.

Thomas-Rasset was the first among those being sued to refuse a settlement and instead took the case to court.

In December, the RIAA said it would stop suing people who download music illegally and focus instead on getting Internet Service Providers to take action.

The move away from litigation represented a major shift in strategy for the music industry group, which had filed lawsuits against some 35,000 people for online music piracy since 2003.

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From The Age.

Certainly an expensive lesson in how to not get free music,the legal fees alone would probably send me bankrupt let alone the fine itself!

I can honestly say that I have never downloaded any music on the internet, I prefer to buy my CD's. That was rather an expensive music trip, ouch!

Ludicrous! Unlike the Demurechicky, I have downloaded music, and even from Kazaa and Napster and others. I have also downloaded Windows Updates and the procedure is very similar.

I am not a computer whiz, and the availability of these programs is tempting- how does one filter out the 'legal' from the 'illegal'? I have been told that 'ignorance of the law is not a defence'. My reply is 'In that case, why do we need high paid lawyers?".

I would like to know what music the "felon" downloaded. I also doubt that she just downloaded a mere 24 songs. There's a lot more to this that the news release didn't capture, I'm sure.

I have used "LimeWire" to download many, many songs from the early 1900s to the 1950s and have paid a once only charge to do so. I'm under the impression that I was doing so legally.

You know there's this new website where you can download music starting at 15 cents!!!! it's www.amiestreet.com and from there download music legally at a cheap price! Better than itunes or amazon so far....