Many balked at the gargantuan fine leveled upon Jammie Thomas-Rassert. Beaten by the music industry copyright protection organization, the RIAA, a jury of her peers handed the working woman an incredible fine of $1.92M USD; one that she likely will not be able to pay off during her working career. Her financial future has essentially been ruined due to two key decisions -- first deciding to download and share the tracks, and second, standing up to the RIAA, rather than settling.

To put the fine in context, if she had stolen two CDs (which might even have added a few extra tracks) and got caught, she likely would have paid $1,000 or less. For example in Los Angeles, California, the fine for petty shoplifting goes up to $400 at maximum. In both a shoplifting case and the P2P trial, the intent to steal (and possibly share with friends) is very evident. However, the RIAA argues that the extra damage done by passing on the stolen good justifies inflating the fine nearly 5,000-fold. Even considering the tracks she stole were representative of a larger undocumented shared library (which is likely true in the case of the shoplifter -- most have stolen before, prior to their arrest), the fine is impressive.

Many speculated that the fine would be found to be unconstitutionally excessive. However, Obama administration officials with the U.S. Department of Justice ruled last Friday that the $1.92M USD fine against its citizen was perfectly legal and okay.

Read the entire article at DailyTech.