Business Highlights

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 that she didn't have a Kazaa 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.

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WASHINGTON (AP) _ Orders to factories fell in August by the largest amount in seven months, reflecting weakness across a wide swath of manufacturing as the turbulent financial market made businesses more cautious.

The Commerce Department said orders dropped by 3.3 percent in August, even worse than the expected 2.8 percent decline. It was the biggest setback since orders fell 4.2 percent in January.

Demand for commercial aircraft fell 39.9 percent, leading the decline. Orders also were weak for other industries, from autos and home appliances to industrial machinery and steel.

Orders for durable goods, which are items expected to last at least three years, fell by 4.9 percent. Demand for nondurable goods, such as food, clothing and gasoline, declined 1.6 percent.

In a troublesome sign, business demand for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft _ considered a good gauge for investment plans _ dropped 0.5 percent in August.

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NEW YORK (AP) _ Wall Street finished a quiet session modestly higher Thursday as investors awaited the government's September employment report, hoping it will strike a balance between steady growth and more room for interest rate cuts.

Thursday's economic data, which showed a gain in jobless claims and a drop in factory orders, gave investors little incentive to make any big moves ahead of Friday's payrolls report.

Wall Street appears optimistic that the Labor Department report will indicate a rebound from August and include revisions to that month's dismal numbers. August's job creation report showed a decline in payrolls when economists had predicted a rise, and sent the Dow Jones industrial average down nearly 250 points the day it was released. Since then, the Federal Reserve has lowered a key interest rate and the Dow quickly bounced back to where it was in mid-July, before the credit markets tightened up and caused stocks to fall sharply.

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VIENNA, Austria (AP) _ The European Central Bank held its benchmark interest rate steady at 4 percent on Thursday amid a strong euro, but tread a cautious path about its next rate move, given inflation risks and a turbulent world economy.

The Bank of England also stood firm on its key rate, keeping it at 5.75 percent as analysts said the banks wanted more time to assess how deep an impact the U.S. subprime mortgage morass would have on consumer and economic confidence.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, whose every careful word is parsed for meaning, said the bank would "monitor very closely" developments in the euro zone and that it was "ready to counter" risks to inflation, including higher energy prices, amid a more volatile world economy.

And he noted the need for "particular caution" in light of the limited new economic data available.

Given the scope of uncertainty because of turbulence stemming from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, Trichet said that "additional information is needed before monetary conclusions can be drawn."

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FAIRPORT, N.Y. (AP) _ Constellation Brands Inc. said Thursday its second-quarter profit rose 9.2 percent as strong liquor sales helped offset a drop in wine shipments to U.S. wholesalers and heightened competition in Britain.

The beer, wine and spirits company raised its profit outlook for the full year. Its shares edged up 1.5 percent.

Earnings available to common shareholders came to $72.1 million, or 33 cents a share, in the quarter ended Aug. 31, up from $66 million, or 28 cents a share, a year earlier when it carried hefty restructuring charges.

Excluding one-time items, profit fell to 35 cents a share from 43 cents in last year's second quarter.

Sales after excise taxes dipped 37 percent to $892.6 million from $1.42 billion a year ago as gains from newly acquired Svedka Vodka were more than offset by a recent accounting change in the way it records revenue from its Crown Imports and Matthew Clark wholesale beer business joint ventures.

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TORONTO (AP) _ Smart phone maker Research In Motion Ltd. said Thursday its fiscal second-quarter profit and revenue more than doubled, boosted by strong sales of its flagship BlackBerry products.

For the quarter ended Sept. 1, the Canadian company earned $287.7 million, or 50 cents per share, up from $140.2 million, or 25 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue more than doubled to $1.37 billion from $658.5 million.

Analysts, on average, were expecting a profit of 50 cents per share on revenue of $1.36 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM added about 1.45 million BlackBerry subscriber accounts in the quarter and shipped more than 3 million devices.

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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ General Electric Co. said Thursday it will close a number of lighting plants in Brazil and the U.S. as part of a plan to restructure its consumer and industrial division, potentially cutting more than 1,400 jobs in the process.

GE Consumer & Industrial, based in Louisville, Ky., said it will close all of its lighting operations in Rio de Janeiro, which will affect about 900 jobs.

The company also plans to close some lighting factories in the U.S., which will impact about 425 jobs. "A portion" of the U.S. jobs will be transferred to other GE lighting facilities, the company added.

Another 80 jobs will be affected by a transfer of some operations from facilities in Mexico and the U.S. to other locations.

Fairfield, Conn.-based GE said it is closing the facilities, in part, because of a changing lighting market, in which demand for the incandescent bulb has declined over the past five years due to new technology and efficiency standards.

The company said it can now purchase components at more competitive prices, making it more expensive to continue making the lighting-product components in-house.

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SEATTLE (AP) _ Microsoft Corp. launched a Web site Thursday for managing personal health and medical information, but privacy advocates worry that neither the technology nor U.S. law will protect patients' most confidential details.

From the consumer's point of view, Microsoft's HealthVault site is part filing cabinet, part library and part fax machine for an individual's or a family's medical records and notes.

The free site can store medical histories, immunization and other records from doctors' offices and hospital visits, including data from devices like heart monitors. It is also tied to a health information search engine the software maker launched last month.

Users can dole out access to different slices of their health data via e-mailed invitations to doctors, family members and other people as the need arises.

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By The Associated Press

The Dow rose 6.26, or 0.04 percent, to 13,974.31, after shooting to a record high Monday and then giving back a large chunk of its gains Tuesday and Wednesday.

Broader stock indicators were also little changed on the day, which was notable for its low volume and muted volatility. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.25, or 0.21 percent, to 1,542.84, and the Nasdaq composite index advanced 4.14, or 0.15 percent, to 2,733.57.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery rose $1.50 to settle at $81.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after falling more than $1 earlier.

Oil prices also drew support from heating oil and gasoline futures. Nymex heating oil rose 5.26 cents to settle at $2.2313 a gallon, while November gasoline rose 5.63 cents to settle at $2.0522 a gallon. Prices of both were supported by the inventory declines and several minor refinery outages on the West Coast.

November natural gas rose 13.5 cents to settle at $7.412 per 1,000 cubic feet. The Energy Department reported that natural gas inventories rose by 57 billion cubic feet last week, less than the 65 billion-cubic-foot increase analysts forecast.

In London, November Brent crude rose $1.78 to settle at $78.97 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.