The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rules that the 34-year-old is guilty of having lied about illegally uploading music and will have to pay $222,000 in damages to the RIAA.
Thomas-Rasset's case has first the headlines in 2007, when (then single mom) Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $222,000 in statutory damages for illegally uploading 24 files. Thomas previously had declined a $5,000 settlement offer. She was granted a re-trial, and received a $25,000 settlement offer and ordered to pay $1,920,000, or $80,000 per song, in that trial. The sum was then reduced to $54,000, which the RIAA declined and was awarded $1.5 million in a third trial. This amount was reduced again to $54,000, while the Court of Appeals now reinstated the original $222,000 judgment.
There is no reason to believe that this battle is over as Thomas-Rasset's attorneys said that they will be fighting all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing that the unreasonable awards are targeted to punish organized crime, not individual persons.