June 18th, 2009

Music-Swapping Woman Told by Jury: Pay $80,000 a Song

By Tom Wilkowske and Susan Decker, Bloomberg

Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group and other record labels were awarded $1.92 million in the retrial of a Minnesota woman accused of swapping music over the Kazaa Internet service...

“The disproportionate size of the verdict raises constitutional questions,” said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the consumer group Electronic Frontier Foundation that’s criticized the music industry’s tactics. “Was the jury punishing her for what she did, or punishing her for the music sharing habits of tens of millions of American Internet users?”

Related Issues: File Sharing

Related Cases: RIAA v. The People

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