Should have just bought the CD
TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: We have a verdict in the first trial of the music industry versus an illegal downloader. Late yesterday, a federal jury ordered a woman to pay $220,000 for sharing music on the Internet. Lisa Napoli has more.
Lisa Napoli: Jammie Thomas of Minnesota was one of 26,000 people sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for illegally sharing music online. Thousands of them have settled their cases, forking over several thousand bucks each. But Thomas decided to fight.
Now, she’s paying the price: 9,200 bucks for each song named in the case.
Paul Resnikoff edits Digital Music News. He says the verdict is likely to scare other file-swappers from fighting back:
Paul Resnikoff: You’re gonna be a little bit more wary of challenging them.
But will the verdict keep people from going online and downloading music for free?
Resnikoff: I really doubt it. Every month, billions and billions of files are traded. So, the chances of you being struck by this lightning, so to speak, is very slim.
In fact, he says, ever since the Recording Industry started suing four years ago, more people than ever are downloading music illegally.
In Los Angeles, I’m Lisa Napoli for Marketplace.
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