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RIAA Appeals Jammie Thomas Mistrial Ruling

By soulxtc

Asks Judge Davis to allow a federal appeals court to review the case rather than force the parties to "invest unnecessary time and resources." The RIAA is certainly still reeling from US District Judge Michael Davis' decision to declare a mistrial in its first ever successful prosecution of an accused file-sharer using the "making available" argument. In the case of Jammie Thomas, Judge Davis said he erred in instructing the jury that simply making music available in KaZaA's "shared folder" was the same as copyright infringement, and that his error "substantially prejudiced" her rights. He also implored Congress to reform copyright law to prevent similarly "oppressive" awards in music file-sharing cases. Based on the judge's instructions, jurors later found her guilty of having some 24 songs in KaZaA's shared folder and set damages of $9,250 for each.

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on October 16, 2008 (boomark / email).