As many of you may or may not know, the once rockin’ band Metallica led the charge that took down Napster and in many ways opened the door for Itunes. It was a victory for record labels everywhere, since it meant the law was on their side in helping them create new ways to take your hard-earned money, all for the right to possess a song that has no mass, no taste, no smell, no physicality whatsoever: an MP3. Metallica’s victory over Napster shut down the company briefly, but after a restructure is back and as present as ever. In effect, they forced one company to do a processing overhaul and opened the floodgates for lawsuits against the very fanbase that supports the Music.

As evidence of this, the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America has begun to launch a full-on assault against the beaches of so-called pirates. They claimed a victim, Jammie Thomas, who was found guilty by a jury of peers on 24 counts of copyright infringement for downloading 24 seperate songs illegally. Thomas is 30, a single mother, and is an environmental coordinator working with Native Americans in Minnesota. This jury of peers fined her nearly $10,000 for each of the 24 counts levelled against her. This figure reaching nearly a quarter million dollars by multimillion dollar label Capital Records is roughly five times her annual salary. Justice is a dish best served cold…

For details about the case, go to these links:
Times Online
ars technica or simply google Jammie Thomas.