A woman ordered to pay US$222,000 for downloading and sharing music files has decided to appeal the case.

A happy Jammie Thomas said on her Myspace.com blog that the appeal was announced by her lawyer, Brian Toder, in an interview with CNN.

"My attorney announced, on national television, with the RIAA watching I'm more than certain, we're going to appeal," she wrote in the blog entry. Winning the appeal will "stop RIAA in their tracks," she wrote.

Thomas was ordered last week by a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota to pay US$222,000 in damages to six music labels, representing US$9,250 for each of 24 songs illegally downloaded and shared over the Kazaa file-sharing network. The case against Thomas was filed by the Recording Industry Association of America, an umbrella group representing music labels.

The verdict was a sign that RIAA might come out victorious in some of the more than 20,000 lawsuits it has filed against people for alleged Internet copyright infringement.

Thomas, who lives in Minnesota, has also set up a Web site to raise funds to cover legal expenses. As of Monday, supporters had donated US$957.

Neither RIAA nor attorney Toder, of the Chestnut and Combronne law firm, could not be reached for comment.

The music labels involved in the suit include Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Bros. Records.