Mistrial declared in RIAA file-sharing lawsuit

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MAFIAA VICTIM Jammie Thomas got a temporary reprieve Wednesday when a US federal judge declared a mistrial in the organisation's copyright infringement lawsuit against her. The decision cancelled the music industry's first victory in a file-sharing case and the only corporate terrorists' copyright infringement lawsuit that has yet gone to trial.

A jury in Duluth, Minnesota had found the single mother of three liable for copyright infrigement last October and had ordered her to pay a penalty of $222,000 for exposing 24 tunes to downloading by other users on the Kazaa file-sharing network, or $9,250 per song.

US District Judge Michael J Davis granted Thomas' motion for a new trial, based upon his own previous error of law in issuing an instruction to the trial jury saying it could find that unauthorised distribution – that is, copyright infringement – took place if it concluded that Thomas had made copyrighted music available for downloading, regardless of whether or not evidence of actual distribution had been produced by the plaintiff recording companies.

In his ruling reversing his own prior decision, Judge Davis wrote, "Jury Instruction No. 15 was erroneous, and that error substantially prejudiced Thomas' rights. Based on the court's error in instructing the jury, it grants Thomas a new trial." His 44-page ruling cited a 1993 appellate court decision to conclude that the federal copyright statute requires that actual distribution must be shown to support a finding that copyright infringement had occurred.

"Now they're going to have to prove their claims," Thomas said. "They never had to prove anything before. Now they do. It kind of levels the playing field a little bit."

Thomas expects the companies to appeal, and said that the case could go all the way up to the US Supreme Court.

If that happens, it will likely be at least several years before Jammie Thomas has to face off against the MAFIAA's lawyers and unlicenced private investigators in another jury trial.

Inquirer article, with more link