Jammie Thomas, the woman who lost the first RIAA music pirating trial said Monday she is appealing the $222,000 verdict that a Duluth, Minnesota jury ordered her to pay last week after being found guilty of illegally downloading 24 copyrighted songs - that's $9,250 apiece.

As much as I dislike RIAA's scare tactics of suing everything that moves, they apparently had a strong case here, with every significant allegation that the labels made being backed up in court, including the "tereastarr" screen name, the ownership of the IP address, and the presence of a single device behind the IP address.

Thomas said she plans to appeal based on the federal jury's finding that making songs available online violates copyright. According to Thomas, Jurors were instructed to find liability if they found she had an open Kazaa share-file folder with music in it available to others, regardless of whether any downloading occurred. If she wins this appeal, the RIAA "would actually have to prove a file was shared and by someone other than their own licensed agent." We'll have to wait and see if she manages to get the verdict overturned.