Music Sharer fined $222,000

A Minnesota woman named Jammie Thomas was sentenced to pay more than two hundred thousand dollars in damages because of her part in illegal music sharing. The official sentence was for copyright infringement and she was charged $9,250 for the 24 songs that she was accused of sharing illegally on the Kazaa music sharing network. This is a largely symbolic victory for the music industry, which has brought legal action against 30,000 people since 2003. Despite that the fact that most of these cases were eager to settle out of court, Miss Thomas decide to go to court, claiming that she did not illegally share the music files on her computer. This turned out to be a mistake, considering that most of the settled cases were resolved with a fine of only $4,000.
The New York Times reported that judge Michael J. Davis' ruling in favor of the music industry was highly contested. This was due to the fact that the judged ruled that to convict her, there did not have to be any proof that the music on her computer was ever shared to other computers through Kazaa or any other sharing network. many people (including myself) see this verdict as nothing more than the greedy entertainment industry trying to prove a point. They are trying to discourage people from obtaining or trading illegal music files, and also encouraging them to instead buy their favorite music at their nearest CD store, and not their computers. But the question remains on the issue of whether or not people be willing to give up their free music, for the good of the music corporation fat cats.