Paying the price for downloading

Remember when downloading free songs from the Internet seemed like harmless fun?

Well, if you haven’t been scared out of the practice in recent years by the recording industry, here’s a new reminder that it’s not only illegal, but it also could be costly. Late last week, the recording industry won its first lawsuit against illegal downloaders. A jury ordered Jammie Thomas, who lives in Minnesota, to pay $222,000 for reportedly sharing more than 1,700 songs on a peer-to-peer file sharing network.

The Los Angeles Times’ music critic has a critique of the music that Thomas downloaded and shared, which ranged from Green Day to Bryan Adams.