Woman is fined over a million for file sharing in the US

 

Speaking of individual lawsuits against file-sharers, a woman was recently ordered to pay a $1.9 million (£1.2m) fine in the only music copyright violation case to go to trial in the United States.

 

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, was accused of illegally sharing 24 specific songs by artists such as Green Day and a jury in Minnesota ruled that she had violated music copyright and must pay damages to the record industry.

 

This was the second time that record companies had taken Thomas-Rasset to court, the first trial ended without a verdict.

 

This seemingly landmark case was the only one of more than 30,000 similar lawsuits to make it to trial, whilst most individuals targeted by the American record industry have reportedly settled out of court with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for an average of a £1, 500 fine per person.

 

Record companies accused Thomas-Rasset of uploading 1,700 songs to file-sharing site Kazaa before it was transformed into a legal service in 2006.

 

An appeal is expected so stay tuned to The Gen for updates!

 

In related news, a 33-year-old UK man was recently arrested in Portsmouth for his alleged involvement in a network called DV8, who are suspected of leaking more than 2,500 advance CD promos to the public on P2P file-sharing networks.

 

The man has apparently been released on bail, and the investigation is ongoing.

 

Have your say: Will this woman actually need to pay this amount or will an appeal be successful? Does this kind of landmark example case act as a deterrent at all to illegal file sharing? Is the amount of the fine anywhere near proportionate to the criminal activity or quantity of songs uploaded?