Paying The Price For Free Downloads

Today’s biggest piece of music industry news is probably the result of the Jammie Thomas mp3 file-sharing case in the US. A jury found her guilty of offering to share 24 specific songs online via Kazaa…

Although she claims not to have a Kazaa account, she has been ordered to pay a total fine of $222,000 – which equates to $9,250 per song. The six record companies sueing her claim she shared a total of 1,702 songs, a charge which she also denies. However, the evidence against here was described as ‘overwhelming’. These details are as reported by James Frankel:

she used a login ID and password that was easily traced to many other online accounts that she used. Her IP address was recorded when she created the most expensive playlist of all time ($9,250 per song).

Although many people have been sued by record companies for similar charges, she is the first to have fought the case in court. About 26,000 lawsuits have been filed to date over illegal music sharing, but these have all been settled out of court for amounts of no more than a few thousand dollars.

It would seem that the main impact of this case would be that anyone sued by a record label will now be even less likely to contest the accusation; however, as the incentive for bands to hand over the rights to their work is rapidly decreasing, future cases regarding illegal downloads may well be contested directly between artists and their fans. In such a scenario, the major record labels may ultimately end up becoming little more than a specialist legal and PR team for independent musicians, or ‘clients’…