A woman has become the first person to be successfully sued for illegal filesharing in the US and has been ordered to pay a fine of almost $2m after a retrial.
A federal jury ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a 32 year-old mother of four from Minnesota wilfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs.
Thomas-Rasset was originally found guilty of copyright infringement in 2007 and was ordered to pay a fine of $222,000. However, a new trial was ordered after the judge in her original case said he had "erred in giving the jury instruction".
Unfortunately for Thomas-Rasset, a new jury decided her crime warranted a larger punishment, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song.
A spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America said that the companies due the payment were willing to settle out of court for a lower amount.
The companies that sued Thomas-Rasset are subsidiaries of major recording companies, Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, EMI Group PLC and Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment.
On Tuesday (June 16) the UK Government published a report, 'Digital Britain', outlining measures of tackling illegal file-sharing in Britain.
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