Damages Cut In File-Swapping Case

A federal judge in Minneapolis has drastically reduced the penalty against a Minnesota woman in the RIAA’s first file-swapping case to ever go to court.

While Jammie Thomas-Rasset was previously ordered to pay the recording industry $1.5 million for illegally sharing 24 songs via Kazaa, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ruled that penalty – $62,500 per song – was simply too much.

Davis reduced Thomas-Rasset’s penalty to $2,250 per song July 22, after attorneys for the woman argued the previous judgment violated the due process clause of the Constitution.

Multiple juries have ruled against the woman throughout the long-running case, which has also gone through multiple appeals in the five years since the RIAA filed suit.