Bridgeport Woman Fined Over Internet Music Files

May 6, 2004 7:14 am US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (Bridgeport) — A federal judge in Bridgeport has fined a Connecticut woman six-thousand dollars for downloading copyright-protected music from the Internet.

Jennifer Brothers of Andover claims she was never officially notified of the suit by the recording industry, didn’t know the practice was illegal and feels her treatment is “very unfair.”

Federal Judge Janet Hall has barred Brothers from downloading, uploading or distributing copyrighted songs over the Internet. According to court documents, Brothers never accepted a copy of the suit and never filed a response with the court. The fine came when she failed to appear for a hearing last week and Hall found Brothers to be in default.

Hall’s decision came on the heels of 477 lawsuits filed last week by U-S record companies against throngs of unknown Internet users, including a suit against students at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield and Trinity College.

Some 25-hundred suits have been filed nationally within the past year as the industry attempts to protect itself from Internet downloads and file sharing .