Minnesota woman accused of sharing songs online owes record companies $222,000

But, she was just “sharing.” Haven’t we been told that “shared sacrifice” is something we all must do? 

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota woman accused of sharing songs online owes record companies $222,000 for willful copyright violations, a federal appeals court said Tuesday, reversing a lower court’s ruling in a long-running lawsuit over music downloading.

A three-judge appeals panel ruled that Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis erred when he cut the award against Jammie Thomas-Rasset to $54,000.

The Brainerd woman’s case was one of only two lawsuits to go to trial out of more than 30,000 filed by the recording industry in a drive to stop the unauthorized free downloading of copyrighted music, which the industry says has cut deeply into its revenues. The vast majority settled for about $3,500 apiece.

The U.S. Supreme Court in May refused to hear an appeal by former Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum of a $675,000 award in the other case, but he has vowed to keep fighting.

Juries ruled against Thomas-Rasset in three separate trials since the industry sued her in 2006. Davis said the last award, of $1.5 million, was “severe and oppressive.”

But the appeals court found the high award was not unreasonable. It sent the case back to Davis for an order that she pay $222,000 — the award from her original trial — and for an injunction barring her from making the plaintiffs’ recordings available to the public via online media distribution systems in the future.