Jammie Thomas

The RIAA began its first copyright infringement trial against U.S. resident Jammie Thomas, bright and early yesterday.

While the RIAA has charged about 20,000 US residents for acts of online piracy, this is the first one that's made it to the courtroom, according to Ars Technica.

Thomas stands accused of distributing around 1,700 songs over Kazaa and was instant messaged by an RIAA SafeNet investigator over the P2P network back in February 2005.

While the RIAA pours time, effort and money into a trial that Mashable is calling a "sacrificial lamb" to the epidemic of music piracy, a recent study finds that file-sharing actually leads to "chart churn," pushing indie acts into salience that wouldn't typically make it to the top of the charts.

Logic holds that piracy has made the process of finding new music much more affordable for the casual listener.