It was a bad day for Ms. Thomas. The jury awarded 6 record companies $222,000. The verdict was for downloading 24 songs. That is a whopping $9250 per song.

I don't condone downloading of copyrighted music. If Ms. Thomas did actually download the music in question, she was wrong. Now the issue is the amount of this award. It is absurd. Only in the U.S. legal system could 24 songs be equated with this much money.