That Was Quick: Single Mother Loses to RIAA

It took a Minnesota jury only 4 hours after 2 days of testimony to find single mother of 2 Jammie Thomas guilty of copyright infringement. She is now responsible for the $222,000 judgment for re-distributing 24 songs.

This, the first RIAA lawsuit to go to trial sets a major precedent for the music industry. Sharing music online is illegal, the law is immutably clear and a jury when presented with proof has no choice but to enforce it.

That said, Thomas’ lawyer Richard Gabriel’s defense: “Someone used her name and IP address—it’s not impossible.” was pretty weak. There are still major challenges to the recording industry to come in the form of the society has changed argument employed by Google, Veoh and DivX that media is being used in fundamentally different ways.