Record Companies Win Music Sharing Trial

In the October 5th issue of the BNA Internet law news, there was a story about how record companies won a big trial against a 30 year old lady named Jammie Thomas. The record companies claimed that Thomas has been illegally sharing copyrights music through her Kazaa account. The record companies settled the case, making the final decision that Thomas is going to have to pay back $222,000. The record companies are also hoping this will send a message to others who share copyrighted material over the Internet. Record companies say that since 2003 file sharing of illegal copyrighted material has increased and it has had a negative impact on record companies sales because people are just downloading it for free instead of buying the CD's in stores.

I found this to be a very interesting story. Attending Umass, I know a lot about illegal downloading and illegal file sharing of copyrighted material because that is something that is common at Umass. Every year there has been a lot of people just at Umass that get in trouble for this, and record companies are not taking this issue easily. I feel that since this is the first case that actually made it to trial, that record companies were making a point also. They were very harsh in their demands so it will hopefully send a message to all of the people who do share and download illegal material. This is clearly a big issue in our society so record companies are not taking this lightly and are doing everything in their power to prevent this from happening more in the future.