The case of a woman found guilty of sharing copyrighted music via Kazaa and fined $222,000 has returned to court. The original verdict was thrown out after complaints the jury was ill-advised over the meaning of a term used in the relevant legislation.

The first trial of Jammie Thomas, a civil case brought by several record labels, ended in October 2007. After the court decided she had illegally shared 24 songs (chosen as sample cases from a reported 1,702 which she had shared on Kazaa), a jury ruled that she should pay $9,250 in compensation to the Recording Industry Association of America for each song. The jury had the legal option of selecting any amount between $750 and $150,000 per track.

However, the judge in the case later threw out the verdict. He ruled that his own instructions to the jury had been faulty in that he told them that the act of “making available” the songs would have constituted copyright infringement. He says it’s now legally uncertain whether that is indeed the case.

It appears the prosecution arguments in this case will be much the same as in the original trial, based around records proving that a Kazaa user, with the same username Thomas is known to have used on other sites, shared copyrighted songs from a computer with the same IP address as Thomas’s computer.

Thomas, however, had had a change of lawyer and strategy. She’ll be represented by Kiwi Alejandro Danao Camara, a 25-year-old who was the youngest students to ever graduate in law at Harvard. The key defense witness will be computer science professor Dr. Yongdae Kim who has reportedly put together a list of 14 possible explanations for the username and IP matches (besides the explanation that Thomas did indeed share the files). However, the court has already ruled that Kim cannot present any ‘explanations’ which are incompatible with the way Kazaa works, which will apparently shorten the list presented in court.

It’s also expected that if the court does again find against Thomas and order her to pay compensation, Camara will argue that the relevant copyright law allows fines so excessive that it is unconstitutional.

The case, which begins today, is expected to last the rest of the week before the jury begins its deliberations.

Related:

Entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 4:29 pm under Legal, Piracy.

Read more entries by John Lister.
Stumble It!