Judge Declares Mistrial in RIAA-Jammie Thomas Trial

By David Kravets September 24, 2008 | 6:18:26 PMCategories: RIAA Litigation

Jammie Thomas, left, and her attorney, Brian Toder, leave the courthouse last year after a jury dinged her $222,000 for sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa file-sharing network.
Photo: Associated Press

A federal judge on Wednesday set aside the nation's first and only federal jury verdict against a peer-to-peer file sharer for distributing copyrighted music on a peer-to-peer network without the labels' authorization.

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis of Duluth, Minnesota, declared a mistrial in the case of Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota mother of three, setting aside the $222,000 penalty levied by a federal jury last year for copyright infringement -- $9,250 for each of the 24 infringing music tracks she made publicly available on the Kazaa file sharing network.

Davis' decision means the Recording Industry Association of America's five-year copyright infringement litigation campaign has never been successful at trial.

Most of the 30,000 cases have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars and have never broached the hot-button legal issue that ultimately prompted Davis to declare a mistrial.

Thomas was the nation's only RIAA target to take her case to trial, which last year ended in an RIAA victory. The case emboldened the recording industry's resolve to continue its public relations effort against file sharing through a nationwide litigation campaign.

The legal brouhaha prompting Davis to declare a mistrial focused at the heart of all file sharing cases: What level of proof was necessary for the RIAA to prevail.

Davis had instructed (.pdf) the jury last year that the recording industry did not have to prove anybody downloaded the songs from Thomas' open Kazaa share folder. Davis read Jury Instruction No. 15 to jurors saying they could find unauthorized distribution -- copyright infringement -- if Thomas was "making copyrighted sound recordings available" over a peer-to-peer network "regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown."

But Davis had second thoughts and, without any urging from the litigants in the case, summoned the parties back to his courtroom in August, writing in a brief order that he may have committed a "manifest error of the law." He heard arguments from both sides and said he would issue a ruling soon.

With Wednesday's opinion, Davis made his revised position official and ordered a retrial -- one with different jury instructions.