A federal jury found Jammie Thomas-Rasset guilty of illegal file-sharing and fined the 32-year-old mother of four $1.92 million, the AP reports. She was found to have violated the copyrights on 24 songs and each carried an $80,000 penalty. This was the second trial of Thomas-Rasset, after an error in jury instructions in 2007 prompted a retrial. Of more than 30,000 similar cases, most settled out of court for about $3,500; Thomas-Rasset's is the first such case to go to trial.

Recording companies accused Thomas-Rasset of sharing 1,700 songs on Kazaa and identified her through her screen name and IP address. Lawyers for the recording companies asked for such a large penalty to deter others from illegally distributing the music of Gloria Estefan, Sheryl Crow, Green Day, and Journey, among others, as Thomas-Rasset stood accused of doing. Eighty thousand dollars for a Journey song? I'm pretty sure it can be had legally for a buck.

Thomas-Rasset's file-sharing occurred in 2005, and Kazaa has since reached a settlement with the music companies to become a legal subscription service. The recording industry has also changed its tactics in fighting file-sharing; no lawsuits like the one against Thomas-Rasset have been filed since August. Bad timing for her. Where's she going to find almost $2 million? "There's no way they're ever going to get that," she said.