The U.S. Department of Justice failed to side with Jammie Thomas from Minnesota in her appeal that called a $222,000 award to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) unconstitutional.

Earlier this year, Thomas, the 31-year-old single mother of two, presented herself in front of the court over a lawsuit brought from the RIAA, which accused her of illegally sharing 24 songs over the Kazaa file-sharing network.

The 12-person jury ordered Thomas to pay $9,250 for each of the 24 songs central to the case, meaning a total of $222,000. The woman appealed the verdict, saying that the record companies involved in the lawsuit did not actually incur that much in damages.

The Department of Justice this week responded to this appeal, siding with the RIAA. Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bucholts said that the damages assessed by the jury against the woman were not excessive.

"Given the findings of copyright infringement in this case, the damages awarded under the Copyright Act's statutory damages provision did not violate the Due Process Clause" of the Constitution, the brief noted. They were not "as severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense...."

It is the first time when the RIAA, the industry trade group representing the world's biggest music concerns, is actually winning a lawsuit in its fighting against music piracy. More than 26,000 individuals, against whom the society has filed similar cases over the past two years, were terrified about the result of the lawsuit. The Thomas case was the first to come to court.