Huge fine for US music downloader

A court in the US has ordered a woman to pay $222,000 (£109,000) in damages for illegally downloading music.

The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 32, from Minnesota, to pay for offering to share 24 specific songs online - a cost of $9,250 per song.

But the fine could have been millions, as record companies said she illegally shared a total of 1,702 songs.

Ms Thomas was the first person accused of illegal file-sharing who decided to fight the case in court.

Each year millions of households illegally share music files, and the music industry takes it as a serious threat to its revenue.

About 26,000 lawsuits have been filed against alleged file-sharers, but most defendants settle privately by paying a fine amounting to a few thousand dollars.

Industry defiant

However, contesting the charge and losing will cost Jammie Thomas almost a quarter of a million dollars.

Her lawyer, Brian Toder, told the Associated Press Ms Thomas was reduced to tears by the verdict.

"This is a girl that lives from paycheque to paycheque, and now all of a sudden she could get a quarter of her paycheque garnished for the rest of her life," he said.

The US record industry said people would understand the verdict.

Richard Gabriel, a lawyer for the music companies, said the verdict was important.

"This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our recordings is not OK," he told AP.

He said no decision had yet been made about what the record companies would do, if anything, to pursue collecting the money from Ms Thomas.