File Sharing Court Brawl Continues By Mark Fleischmann July 7, 2009 — The long-running legal battle between a single mom and the recording industry's trade group continues with the defendant's latest motion.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the single mom in Minnesota who went up against the Recording Industry Association of America in court, lost her case and was ordered to pay $1.92 million, or $80,000 for each of 24 illegally downloaded songs (she was originally accused of file-sharing 1700 songs). She has filed a motion asking for one of three things: eliminate damages, reduce them to at statutory minimum of 18 grand, or grant a new trial.

Thomas-Rasset could have settled for less, the RIAA says. At her first trial, the judgment was just $222,000. The judge threw that one out. The RIAA would have been content with $5000, it now claims.

In other news related to the case, payback is literally the goal of a couple of attorneys who plan to file a class action suit against the RIAA. They want the recording industry group to pay back all the money it's won in lawsuits (mostly threatened lawsuits) against file sharers.

The RIAA has a grievance of its own, claiming that Harvard legal scholars who side with Thomas-Rasset posted "unauthorized and illegal recordings" of depositions and phone calls to the internet. Says one of the scholars: "The idea that a court is being asked by them to order educational material to be removed from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society website seems a questionable intrusion both on my liberty and the public interest."

This bizarre and tangled story is far from over.