In the calm aftermath of disbelief, the RIAA much to everyone’s surprise has won their case in court. While this is a decent precedent for RIAA when they go to court for other cases when they get there. Or the other cases might just try to settle now and not face a 220,000 dollar fine if they loose in court.

Just about most of the major news sources have commented on this as a form of disbelief that any jury could find the defendant guilty. And everyone has started to digest the case and offer to take up Thomas on appeal. Although there has been some snarky comments on both sides of the fence as reported by CNet.

He then called on EFF and other file-sharing supporters, who he accuses of egging Thomas on, to help pay the damages. “This woman found lawyers who tried to make her the Joan of Arc of illegal downloading. And are they going to write the check?” Castle said. “This woman doesn’t know the law. What she knows is she was downloading and someone comes to her and says ‘Let’s fight back.’ You find some lawyer to take the case and all of a sudden the music stops and there’s no chair for her. This person has been hoodwinked by people who don’t have her best interest at heart.” Source: CNet

What is also interesting that there has not been much response from the Bittorrent world yet, it is almost like they are pondering what they are going to say. P2P and Bittorrent have legitimate uses, good uses that help many companies from Linux to Blizzards World of War Craft to Joost and others. But the mass adoption has been all about music, movies, and porn.

People have used the system to download content that they want to try before they buy. There has been a lot of rebellion about DRM, and the failure of Google Video, Virgin, and other outlets leaving customers high and dry with DRM laden files that no longer work after a certain date really puts users on the short end of the stick.

This is not a problem that is over with by a long shot, but there is going to be a lot of regrouping on the issue, and its ramifications.