The Recording Industry Association of America's much crticised campaign against individuals who take part in illegal filesharing - which costs the industry billions of dollars - has finally resulted in a high-profile conviction when a jury at the Duluth Federal Court ordered Jammie Thomas to pay the labels $222,000, the sum of $9,250 for each of 24 songs for which the companies sought damages.

The Recording Industry Association of America's much crticised campaign against individuals who take part in illegal filesharing - which costs the industry billions of dollars - has finally resulted in a high-profile conviction when a jury at the Duluth Federal Court ordered Jammie Thomas to pay the labels $222,000, the sum of $9,250 for each of 24 songs for which the companies sought damages.

lawsuit accused Thomas, a single mother of two, of sharing more than 1,700 songs on the peer-to-peer file sharing network Kazaa. The suit contended that Thomas violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by distributing songs for free that belonged to the record labels.

The labels' international trade body, the IFPI,  estimates that 20 billion tracks are downloaded illegally each year and that only 795 million tracks are legally purchased - a ratio of 25 illegal downloads to each legal one.

Over 10,000 people in 18 different countries have been threatened with legal action. The legal download market, worth about £1billion ($2b) is worth about 10% of the total market value in recorded.

The Head of SonyBMG litigation, Jennifer Pariser,  who testified during the trial made the industrys position clear saying "it is important for SonyBMG to combat this problem, If we don't, we don't have a business.

In Washington, DC, the Recording Industry Association of America issued a statement that the jury's decision affirms "that the law is clear, as are the consequences for breaking it. ... We will continue to bring legal actions against those individuals who have broken the law".