A 30 year-old American woman, Jammie Thomas has become the first person to be taken to court and prosecuted for illegally downloading music via a PC. She has been fined $220,000 (£110,000).

Since 2003 various record companies have filed 26,000 lawsuits over file-sharing, which the music industry has led to a decline in sales. But before now, all cases have been settled out of court. Thomas decided to go to court suggesting she had done nothing wrong. Unfortunately, she lost and because she does not have the money to pay the fine, faces a legal order that would deduct a quarter of her salary until the fine is paid.

She has been ordered to pay the six record companies (Sony, Arista, Interscope Records, UMG, Capitol and Warner Bros) $9,250 (£4,500) for each of 24 songs that were highlighted in the case. She was also accused of illegally sharing 1,702 songs with the peer-to-peer Kazaa software.

Richard Gabriel, lawyer for the music companies, said, “This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our recordings is not OK.”