RIAA's Only File-Sharing Trial Victory Overturned: Mistrial Ruled

You'll probably recall Jammie Thomas, the only target of the RIAA to take her case to trial. In October of last year the trial ended in an RIAA victory, with a $222,000 penalty assessed against her --- $9,250 for each of the 24 music tracks she allegedly made publicly available on the Kazaa P2P network.

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The presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis of Duluth, Minnesota, had second thoughts about his instructions (.PDF) to jurors, however. Jury Instruction No. 15 to jurors saying they could find unauthorized distribution -- copyright infringement -- if Thomas was guilty of:

The act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown.

But later, in May of this year, Davis asked for a briefing on whether Thomas should receive a new trial. He heard oral arguments on August 4th. In his new ruling (.PDF), Davis set aside the previous verdict, granting a new trial. The ruling said:

Jury Instruction No. 15 was erroneous and that error substantially prejudiced Thomas’s rights. Based on the Court’s error in instructing the jury, it grants Thomas a new trial. Because the Court grants a new trial on the basis of jury instruction error, it does not reach Thomas’s claim regarding excessive damages set forth in her motion for a new trial. Plaintiffs’ request to amend the judgment is denied because the judgment is vacated.

Davis went further, asking Congress to Copyright Act to bring it up-to-date with currently technology and P2P network cases such as this. David also took some time to show his disapproval of the amount of the damage award, which many thought was overboard:

Her alleged acts were illegal, but common. Her status as a consumer who was not seeking to harm her competitors or make a profit does not excuse her behavior. But it does make the award of hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages unprecedented and oppressive.

Since this was the only case to ever go to trial, one could say that the RIAA's five-year copyright infringement litigation campaign has never been successful --- at trial. Most of the cases have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars each.

We'll now wait and see if the RIAA appeals this ruling or opts for a new trial.