Yesterday, The New York Times reported this story, that a 32 year-old American woman was ordered to pay $80,000 for each of the 24 songs that were posted on a website so others could download them.

Several years ago when illegal music-sharing on the internet was a new phenomenon, the music industry targeted website operators like Napster, and was largely successful.

However, as music-sharing websites were shut down by court orders, illegal music sharing turned underground via peer-to-peer sharing (“P2P”) programs. The industry for a while then turned to suing individual users for copyright infringement before changing its policy again in December 2008. The defendant in the present case is so far the only one successfully sued by the music labels.

The lawyer for the defendant said that she may appeal the verdict.

However, I believe that realistically the verdict will be more symbolic than compensatory to the music industry as collection of the award is unlikely.

An analyst from Computerworld, a computer-technology website, has indicated that the massive award could actually hurt  the industry, as it demonstrates how “out of synch” and “unreasonable” the music industry is on copyright infringement claims. The disproportional size of the verdict ($80,000 per song) versus the retail value ($.99 to $1.29) may well raise some legal arguments on constitutional grounds, said New York  copyright lawyer Ray Beckerman.