The latest file-sharing case has resulted in a federal appeals court charging San Antonio's Whitney Harper over $27,000 for 37 songs downloaded online. MySanAntonio.com reports that a three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a previous, lower court ruling charging $200 per song to Harper. The appeals court bumped up the fine to $750 a song, adding up to paying out $27,750 to the RIAA and five record labels.

The 22-year-old Harper acquired the 37 songs through Kazaa when she was a teenager. Her lawyer, Donald Scott Mackenzie, told the site that the case could force the Texas Tech student into bankruptcy. "She's already been denied jobs because of this federal case," Mackenzie said. "This has already impacted her."

Harper said in a court affidavit that at the time she downloaded the songs, "I understood Kazaa and similar products to be legitimate music sites that allowed a person to listen to music on their computer. Many of these sites advertised that this was 100 percent free and 100 percent legal which I had no reason to doubt."