1. She wasn't "convicted" of anything; this wasn't a criminal case. She was found liable for copyright infringement by making copies through downloading, thus violating the record companies' exclusive reproduction rights.
2. She was also sued for "distributing" and "making available for distributing", but the judge threw out the "making available for distributing" claim, and there was no evidence offered of the "distributing" claim.

So yes, the only thing she was found liable for was downloading.

1. Capitol is but one of the plaintiffs.
2. The RIAA was in fact running the case, with the aid of the record company plaintiffs.
3. Capitol is a record company, not a music publisher.
4. The case was about the recordings of several different companies.

She was sued for downloading, distributing, and making available for distribution.

1. No evidence of distribution was ever offered.

2. The court held that "making available for distribution" is not actionable.

3. So the only thing for which she was found liable was downloading.

I'm with you, I didn't like the idea of paying them either. The problem is, it's much cheaper for the business to pay it and have him go away then let the site sit DDoS'd for ages...it's a hard decision. Feels like negotiating with terrorists though.

There were hundreds of IPs. Looked like a small (or portion of a large) botnet.

Stupid cookies. See above, we did check with him.

Agreed

I think most people, both in and out of the United States, see a result like this as absurd.

That's the issue all right. And I think the Court's decision is absurd.

I noticed some pro-RIAA posts saying that defendant was liable for distributing, not just downloading. This is simply not so. Distribution, within the meaning of the Copyright Act, requires a sale or other transfer of ownership, or a rental, lease or lending.... none of which occurred here. 17 USC 106(3)

No, constitutional due process... the principle that statutory damage awards are supposed to bear some reasonable relation to the actual damages sustained.

After the jury's verdict, if the judge finds the verdict for punitive or statutory damages to be out of all reasonable proportion to the actual economic harm sustained, it is supposed to reduce the verdict to a number that bears a reasonable proportion to the harm sustained. The Supreme Court noted that it will rarely be a number higher than 10x the actual damages. In finding the magic number, the court weighs various factors, such as the outrageousness of the defendant's conduct, etc. Regular copyright law also requires that copyright statutory damages bear some reasonable relationship to actual damages. In non-RIAA cases the courts usually sustained multiples of 2 to 4 times the actual damages.