The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has issued a press statement with regard to yesterday's jury decision which left Duluth resident Jammie Thomas with a $220,000 bill for illegally sharing music files using the Kazaa P2P client. Thomas was found guilty of illegally sharing 24 music files owned by members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) trade organization.
IFPI President and CEO, John Kennedy, had these remarks on behalf of the global recording industry.
"We have always made it clear we are reluctant litigators. We do everything possible to persuade people not to leave themselves exposed to litigation. We educate, we warn, we even try and settle before a case gets to court. We derive no great satisfaction from this but hope it will prove a deterrent to others. Our message is: we don't want to litigate - don't leave yourself exposed to litigation."Over 26,000 file sharers in the United States have been targeted for sharing music illegally on P2P networks. The vast majority have settled for a few thousand dollars each, but this was the first of all the thousands of cases to see a jury. A shared folder was discovered on Thomas' hard drive, which was enough for the Jury to confirm the collected data that initiated the litigation in the first place. Thomas maintains that she does not know who put it there and did not partake in illegal file sharing herself.
