Recording Industry (RIAA) won $222,000 dollars against a single mother from Minnesota, US, who was accused of sharing 1,702 songs online with file sharing software called Kazaa. The accusation was brought by 7 leading recording companies and the verdict was to pay the damage of $9,250 per song for only 24 songs.

Napster couldn’t make it, Kazaa failed too, then how a single person can fight against this giant record industry. The Recording Industry Association of America won their 2nd lawsuit against individuals. Record level sues almost 26,000 people in US and most of the people came to a settlement with the recording companies.

But Jammie Thomas was not one of them. She fought back and wanted to prove one thing, online file/music sharing is happening and it will continue in future, why she is the one who have to pay for it? Twenty first century is all about Information Communication Technology (ICT), once data is digitalized, you cannot restrict it’s distribution.

Jammie Thomas is a single mom, who has two boys and her annual income is only $36,000 dollars. How can she afford to pay this damage of $222,000? The U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota could have fined Jammie as much as $3.6 million which would include all legal fees, but decided not to. Jammie is not looking for financial help, she is only looking for fair trial.

The companies that sued Thomas were:

To read the full story visit Yahoo News:
Woman to pay downloading award herself