Jammie Thomas Re-Trial Starts Tomorrow

Jammie Thomas, a name that has become very familiar to many US file-sharers, has had quite a journey in the court system and it’s far from over now. Years of court arguments and legal wrangling have led her to now, a restart in her court case. Her new trial starts tomorrow.

Early on this month, lawyers working on Jammie Thomas’ defence argued that the evidence gathered by Media Sentry should be barred from the case because the evidence was gathered illegally. From our previous report discussing the motion:

“MediaSentry collected the evidence against Jammie Thomas in violation of the
Minnesota Private Detective Act and the federal Pen Register and Trap and Trace Devices Act and Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986,” reads the motion. “These violations were crimes under Minnesota law and federal law.”

The case could set a very interesting precedent because it could confirm or deny the legitimacy of the legal threats the copyright industry had issued in years past. Tens of thousands of US residents have received legal threats saying that if they don’t pay a few thousand dollars, then the copyright industry would take them to court where they would face jail time and hundreds of thousands of dollars per infringement. All the way up to this point, no case has reached a verdict in the United States.

Already, Jammie Thomas lost her case back in 2007 where she was fined $222,000 for sharing 24 songs on the FastTrack network. Then, in a surprising turn of events, Judge Davis threw out the case because of an error on his part. The main reason for the case being thrown out was because he instructed the jurors that merely placing copyrighted works in a shared point constitutes copyright infringement. Realizing this error, he threw the case out saying that steps to allow distribution does not, in and of itself, constitute copyright infringement. In short, it was a “manifest error in law”. The record labels were not happy about the turn of events. They consequently appealed the mistrial ruling saying that the judge had correctly instructed the jurors in this case and that the trial was legitimate. Unfortunately for the major record labels, the judge denied that appeal, allowing for the new trial that will take place tomorrow.

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4. EFF Files Amicus Brief on Jammie Thomas Trial, Demands Re-Trial
5. Jammie Thomas Lawyer Fights to Bar Media Sentry Evidence