leave your turntable on.

Oh dear. RIAA wins key victory, accused file sharer must pay $220,000

Accused of encouraging the illegal sharing of more than 1,700 songs, Jammie Thomas, 30, elected to fight it out with the recording industry instead of settling out of court for far less money. The ensuing legal battle marked the first time the recording industry has argued a file-sharing case before a jury.

Since 2003, many of the 26,000 persons sued by the Recording Industry Assoc. of America (RIAA) have avoided litigation by agreeing to pay a few thousand dollars. Thomas, who could not be reached for comment, has always maintained her innocence. Accused of sharing music through the use of peer-to-peer service, Kazaa, she told the jury that she didn't even own a Kazaa account.
"This woman found lawyers who tried to make her the Joan of Arc of illegal downloading. And are they going to write the check?"
--former music exec Chris Castle

The jury didn't buy her argument. Thomas was ordered to pay $9,250 for each of the 24 songs that the RIAA concentrated on. She was initially accused of sharing 1,702 songs. The decision is important in that it sends a message to file sharers that Internet anonymity won't protect them from lawsuits, said Chris Castle, a copyright attorney and longtime music industry executive.

There's even more news on it--it's one of the top stories on Google News right now and everything.

Charlie Brown even utilized the one sentence.*

I really, really wish that I didn't lack a fundamental ability to just let go.

*This is vague cheating at the concept of One Sentence Updating, but I feel that this needs clarification if you've never seen the quote from Peanuts before; and I am referring to: Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.