RIAA Piracy Trial: Day One

Nearly 26,000 users have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for allegedly pilfering music tracks off of the Internet. The first case made its way to a Duluth, Minnesota federal court Tuesday where the RIAA is accusing 30-year-old Jammie Thomas of sharing 1702 songs through the Kazaa peer-to-peer network.

Thomas is fighting the charge and will reportedly claim she swapped her computer hard drive approximately the same time online investigators documented her computer was sharing copyrighted music files.

RIAA lawyers contend in its lawsuit against Thomas: "This individual was distributing these audio files for free over the Internet under the username 'tereastarr@KaZaA' to potentially millions of other KaZaA users."

The first day of testimony Tuesday and here is how it went.

The first witness for the RIAA was Jennifer L. Pariser of Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Arista Records who testified before a jury that she "has seen thousands of people lose their jobs because of Internet piracy of copyrighted songs," according to a report in the Duluth News Tribune.

The RIAA brought forward witness David Edgar, an Internet security manager from Charter Communication, Thomas' Internet service provider at the time. Edgar testified that the IP address used to share files over the Kazaa network was assigned to Thomas.

According to reports, attorney for Thomas, Brian Toder, raised the possibility during a cross examination of Edgar that someone else could have been sharing Thomas' IP address using a wireless Internet connection. Edgar claims no wireless router was used by Thomas.

A second witness for the RIAA from Safenet, a company hired by the RIAA to find potential illegal file swappers, examined Thomas' hard drive and concluded the music files found were from Kazaa.

Interestingly, the expert also stated there was no evidence of the program Kazaa or any other peer-to-peer network software program on her PC.

Outside the courtroom Thomas is quoted stating "I did not download or upload any music, period."

Thomas is unique in that most of the 26,000 people sued by the RIAA have settled out of court and paid fines averaging $2000. Attorney for Thomas, Brian Toder, told the press she will spend $60,000 to defend herself.

RIAA contends in its lawsuit Thomas was illegally sharing music files which included Godsmack's Spiral, Destiny's Child's Bills, Bills, Bills, Sara McLachlan's Building a Mystery. The RIAA is only suing Thomas for 25 specific songs.

Thomas faces court and lawyer fees, and penalties of anywhere from $19,500 to $3.9 million if she loses her case.

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