Well can't say I'm surprised at the outcome- a federal jury has ordered a Minnesota woman to pay $222,000 to the record companies for downloading and distributing music.
If you missed it:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/04/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes
Ouch. That's a good chunk of coin.

Soooo...what the hell does this mean for everyone exactly? Anything?

I'm not a lawyer, but the defense case appeared to depend on creating doubt that this lady was the actual person committing the crime. Dunno about you guys, but that seemed pretty weak to me.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, sure there's a kazillion songs on our client's hard drive, but that could have been anybody". That would make for the worst episode of Law & Order ever.

And maybe I read it wrong, but did this lady not have the opportunity to settle for super cheap before going to court? Ouch. That's gotta suck.

So what are your thoughts on this? One the one hand, I have no love or sympathy for the poor record companies who are losing money because they are idiots (see exhibit A - New Britany Spears album) On the other, this woman wrote a paper on the Napster trial in college and it's not like she didn't know what she was doing was illegal. It's almost like she asked for trouble.

I can't see this deterring many people, but could it be the start of much easier litigation and "loss-recovery" for the big bad record companies?

Deep down inside I was hoping they'd lose this...

As for the lady, I hope they offer her a better settlement. That's just ridiculous. Problem is, if they let her off the hook, the whole reason for going to trial to establish a deterrent factor is undermined.