DULUTH, Minn. – The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music online and levied $220,000 in damages against her.

The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs in all.

Thomas and her attorney, Brian Toder, declined comment as they left the courthouse.

In the first such lawsuit to go to trial, the record companies accused Thomas of downloading the songs without permission and offering them online through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas denied wrongdoing and testified she didn’t have an account.

Record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits since 2003 over file-sharing, which has hurt sales because it allows people to get music for free instead of paying for recordings in stores. Many other defendants have settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars.

During the three-day trial, the companies presented evidence they said showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name “tereastarr.” Their witnesses, including officials from an Internet provider and a security firm, testified the Internet address used by “tereastarr” belonged to Thomas.

Toder said in his closing that the companies never proved “Jammie Thomas, a human being, got on her keyboard and sent out these things.”

“We don’t know what happened,” Toder told jurors. “All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn’t do this.”

Richard Gabriel, the companies’ lead attorney, called that defense “misdirection, red herrings, smoke and mirrors.”

He told jurors a verdict against Thomas would send a message to other illegal downloaders.

“I only ask that you consider that the need for deterrence here is great,” he said.