On Thursday, the first individual music sharing case to go to trial ended well for music companies. It didn’t go too well for the defendant however. Jammie Thomas is thirty years old and now owes music companies $222,000 for sharing music. That’s $9250 for each of the 24 songs highlighted in the case. It could have been much worse for Thomas. The companies alleged that she had shared 1,702 songs illegally.

By downloading songs and then sharing them through a Kazaa file sharing account, Thomas broke major copyright laws. For years these laws have been bent and broken by music lovers who didn’t understand the laws or frankly didn’t care. There are currently almost eight million households in the United States that have music sharing programs, despite the illegalities.

Throughout the trial, Thomas claimed that she doesn’t have a Kazaa account and that she had nothing to do with sharing music. She spoke to the press and made points about fighting back against bullying and felt confident that she would win out. Apparently she was wrong.

Her hard drive was never brought to court, but it might not have done much good. According to Thomas she had trouble with the drive and replaced it after the alleged sharing took place. According to record companies, she was sent an instant message alerting her to the copyright laws she was breaking. The hard drive was conveniently replaced the following month. (more…)