Woman found liable for sharing copyrighted music online

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Woman found liable for sharing copyrighted music online

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman liable for damages for sharing copyrighted music online.

Jurors ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay record companies $220,000 — or $9,250 for each of 24 songs for which the companies sought damages. They could have awarded damages as low as $750 per song.

Thomas and her attorney, Brian Toder, declined comment as they left the courthouse.

In the first such lawsuit to go to trial, six record companies accused Thomas, 30, of Brainerd, of offering 1,702 songs online through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas had denied wrongdoing and during the trial testified that she didn't have a Kazaa account.

Record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits since 2003 over file-sharing, which has hurt sales because it allows people to get music for free instead of paying for recordings in stores. Many other defendants have settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars.

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