A coming federal-court decision holds consequences for the Recording Industry Association of America and the thousands of people it is suing over shared music files.
Last year, a jury in federal district court in Duluth, Minn., found Jammie Thomas liable for copyright infringement based on songs the RIAA said it found in her computer. Ms. Thomas was told to pay up, to the tune of $222,000.
But the judge in the case, Michael Davis, says his instructions to the jury might have been wrong.
[Jammie Thomas with lawyer Brian Toder after last year's court ruling. ]
Associated Press
Jammie Thomas with lawyer Brian Toder after last year's court ruling.
Judge Davis told the jury that making songs available online for distribution to others was copyright violation and that the record companies did not have to prove distribution took place. He has since learned of a federal district-court case in Phoenix that ruled that making songs available was not copyright violation. He is weighing granting Ms. Thomas a new trial.
If one is granted, one outcome could be a higher bar for what record labels need to prove to demonstrate that copyrights have been violated. For example, evidence that more than a handful of songs on a shared file folder were distributed to others may be needed.
"It's going to be more difficult for them to prove" if they can't simply rely on showing that songs were in somebody's shared file folder, says Brian Toder, a partner at Minneapolis-based Chestnut & Cambronne who is representing Ms. Thomas.
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Originally Posted by Reppy
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