Music sharing case may be tried again

A Minnesota woman ordered to pay $222,000 in the nation’s first music download trial may get another chance with a jury.

The issue is whether record companies have to prove anyone else actually downloaded their copyrighted songs, or whether it’s enough to argue that a defendant made copyrighted music available for copying.

The recording industry has sued thousands of people who shared music online, and has argued that all it has to prove is that the defendant made the music available. It compared the people’s actions to someone displaying pirated DVDs for sale on a table.

Music sharers have argued that the only proven downloaders of their music were investigators working for the record companies themselves.

That was the case in the trial last fall of Jammie Thomas of Brainerd, Minn. U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Davis instructed jurors that making sound recordings available without permission violates record company copyrights “regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown.”

The question of how much the record companies have to prove to win their case came up just before it went to the jury Oct. 4. Davis decided the issue from the bench, siding with the jury instruction favored by the record companies.

On Thursday, Davis said that may have been a mistake.

He wrote that he found a 1993 ruling from the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Minnesota, that said infringement requires “an actual dissemination of either copies or phonorecords.”

Davis wrote Thursday that neither side presented the 1993 decision to him. And he noted that one of the rulings in another case from Arizona, which the record companies used to support their side, was vacated April 29.

Oral arguments on the question of a new trial are planned for July 1 in Duluth, Minn., where the trial was held.

Record company attorney Richard Gabriel said even if the companies have to prove downloading occurred, it should suffice to show downloading by investigators working for the record companies.

He said they also proved at the trial that Thomas violated the copyright because the files on her computer bore the signatures of online music pirates. Thomas claimed the music came from her own CDs.

“If we have to retry the case, we will do so without hesitation,” he said.

Some cases brought by record labels over music distribution have been dismissed, and many defendants settled for a few thousand dollars.