journajunkie

Imagine being found guilty of copyright infringement for using a file sharing service like Kazaa and having a federal jury set damages that you must pay at $220,000.

That’s exactly what happened to Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota woman who is getting a second chance in court to fight the judgment after the  judge threw out the earlier decision because he said he made a mistake when instructing the jury.

Her story and what the new trial could mean are described in a wonderful piece by Alex Ebert that ran in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Boston Herald.

Thomas now has two Harvard-trained lawyers who are taking on her case for free, according to the article.

The 30,000 lawsuits filed by the recording industry since 2003 have prompted copyright lawyers to start taking cases pro bono to fight what some call “extortion,” said Harvard law Prof. Charles Nesson.

The new lawyers are arguing the record industry does not own the copyrights, the artists do. Details of their argument are in the article. It’s an interesting piece about a case with national implications.