Okay, first the background.
About a year ago (October 2007) the RIAA filed a suit against one Ms. Jammie Thomas, a 31 year old single mother of two. They alleged that Thomas had illegally shared 24 songs on Kazaa, and offered her a 'small' settlement; the size of said settlement has not been disclosed on any source I've found, but judging by typical RIAA practice it was likely a fairly large sum by most peoples' standards, probably over $10 000.
Ms. Thomas refused the settlement and the case went to trial. Three days later, the jury decided that Ms. Thomas had indeed infringed copyright, and would have to pay $222 000; a total of $9250 per song.
Ms. Thomas filed an appeal, but before that could be addressed, the presiding judge overturned the entire case on the basis that he'd given a faulty jury instruction; he further noted that the damages awarded were excessive for a case where the defendant had not attempted to profit off of her alleged piracy. Thus, a retrial would be required.
That more or less brings us up to speed. Now it turns out that the RIAA is unhappy with this, and is filing for permission to appeal the judge's overturning the case.
Details
here. Warning: the blog is not well designed.
If the RIAA is successful in appealing the judge's decision, the original verdict will stand and Ms. Thomas will be liable for the $222 000 damages awarded, which I wold imagine would put her into bankruptcy. That is, unless she happens to be an extremely wealthy single mother of two.
A lot of folks are watching this case very very closely. It will, in essence, define the US stance on online file sharing, by declaring exactly what evidence needs to be provided in order to prove copyright.
DISCLAIMER: I do not condone illegal filesharing or copyright infringement in any way, shape or form.
That said, the very thought of this makes me sick. The original decision was exactly what the RIAA was hoping for, since it provides them with a legal precedent (there hasn't been one to date, since no other suits have gone to trial) and will lend some real weight to their extortion campaign. I don't necessarily disagree with the concept of defending copyright, but the idea that the RIAA should have the right to threaten people indiscriminately bothers me, particularly when one considers that their investigative methods
seem to be a little flawed. Given that the combined cost of the individual songs adds up to somwhere around $23, or at most $500 if we assume purchases of full CD's at high ball prices, the judgement does seem a bit excessive, to say the least.
I am not a lawyer. Merely a musician and lover of music. However, I'd rather see my music pirated rampantly than have it enable an organization to pull shit like this. Maybe that's just me, though.