RIAA witness expected lower fine for Thomas

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has taken only one person to trial for file sharing, and recently won a whopping $1.92 million settlement against the person who elected to go to trial over paying a lump sum fine.

The fine against Jammie Thomas was  so large that even one of the RIAA’s primary witnesses in the trial, Sony, had one of its attorneys come forward and say he was "shocked" at the size of the fine handed down against  Thomas.

"We were shocked," according to Sony attorney Gary Wade Leak.  "I suspected we were going to win, but I really thought they would come in with a lower number.

The fine, for downloading 24 copyrighted songs through the Kazaa peer-to-peer file sharing network, equates to about $80,000 per song. 

Thomas first went to trial against the RIAA in 2007, which she lost  and was ordered to pay $222,000, but the judge ruled it a mistrial and ordered a new trial.

It’s possible the $1.92 million fine will be pushed down down to $222,000 — or less — as it’s impossible Thomas will be able to pay the fine.

The RIAA has said it will move away from suing individual file sharers and will instead focus on having Internet service providers (ISPs) crack down on file sharers.  Prior to this decision, the RIAA has filed more than 35,000 John Doe lawsuits against alleged file sharers, who routinely paid between $3,000 and $8,000 in fines.

Despite thousands of lawsuits, Internet piracy has continued to be an epidemic that lawsuits obviously couldn’t slow down.