That said, automatically losing than showing up: In 2009, four defendants who failed to appear were fined the minimum statutory damages of $750 per song. Each of the four had downloaded around ten songs, which meant that they owed the record labels around $7500. While that isn't cheap, it's certainly better than $675,000 or $1.92 million, which is what the defendants who did appear in court that year were fined.

Need an example to understand what happens when you ignore a court order? In 2008, Mavis Roy ignored a lawsuit because she "." Luckily, Roy later received help from the professors and students at the of the University of New Hampshire, and her case was eventually ().

3. This is a civil case--not a criminal one. This means that the group suing you has only to prove that it's "more likely than not" that you downloaded the files, and the jury does not have to be unanimous in its decision.