Jammie Thomas, a Native-American who works on an Indian reservation, was ordered to pay the six record companies suing her $9,250 (6,545) for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. The sum is equivalent to about five times her annual salary and is expected to force her into bankruptcy.

The record companies' victory against Thomas seems unlikely to bring a stop to illegal filesharing.

The ruling is expected to deter only those casual users who surf the internet to find occasional tunes.

Thomas told jurors that she never shared music with strangers, but evidence was presented showing that a user with Thomas's name "tereastarr" provided up to 1,700 songs for others to share over the internet.

The defendant told the court she never downloaded music from the internet and that she has CDs of everything she listens to. "It's been very stressful, " she said. "I have multi-billion-dollar corporations with their own economies of scale suing me. All my disposable income went toward this case. I didn't do this, and I refuse to be bullied."