Digital sales of legal mp3s didn’t begin to make up the difference. Both margins and profits were squeezed, and once again Morris had been forced to fire hundreds of employees across every department. Meanwhile, Project Hubcap was rolling to a stop. The RIAA’s educational lawsuits against the file-sharing public had had no discernible effect, even though they had yet to lose a case. The vast majority of the accused had settled. A small number of cases had been dropped, but only one—out of almost 17,000—had been brought to a jury trial. On October 4, 2007, Jammie Thomas of Brainerd, Minnesota, was found liable for infringing the copyrights on 24 songs she had downloaded off Kazaa. The jury ruled that she owed the recording industry $9,250 a song—a total of $222,000. (Thomas appealed the ruling.) For Universal’s lawyers, the finding was a vindication of the RIAA’s strategy. Average citizens with no vested interest in copyright law had found in favor of the recording companies, and awarded surprisingly heavy damages.
