It looks like the RIAA should be sacking their legal team, after many of their "won" cases are recently being looked at again for legal errors and irregularities.
http://www.techdirt.com/index.php The infamous Jammie Thomas case.
As you'll recall, the RIAA won that case, even though it now admits that it said false things under oath. Much of that decision hinged on the fact that the court said that "making available" was infringement, which is the opposite of what many other courts have been saying. In fact, it turns out that it went against the binding precedent in a different case within the same circuit. The judge has now admitted that he may have committed a "manifest error of law" in his jury instructions, and it sounds like he's going to order a new trial.
This is a big deal. The RIAA has been holding up the Thomas case over and over again as proof that (a) "making available" is infringement and (b) that courts will award huge fines for those caught file sharing. If that decision gets tossed out (not even by an appeals court, but by the judge who ruled in the first place), it will suddenly make the RIAA's claims relating to that case disappear completely.
This really is good news for the victim of this legal fiasco, by stating to the jury that just having a shared folder was infringement the judge blew the whole case as its now widely accepted that this is not the case legally, I think a retrial is in order and let justice be done.
And yes this is the big payout case the RIAA have been crowing about for months, lets see how much the big news media crows about the fact the judgement looks invalid now the judge has admitted making an error, forgive me for not wanting to hold my breath until they report it.
