By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

You’ll probably recall that earlier this year the judge in the RIAA v. Jammie Thomas declared a mistrial in the case, setting aside the original verdict. A retrial date has already been set, but the RIAA had a chance to appeal the mistrial ruling. It has lost that appeal, and the retrial will apparently go on.

Jammie Thomas is the only target of the RIAA to take her case to trial. In October of last year the trial ended in an RIAA victory, with a $222,000 penalty assessed against her — $9,250 for each of the 24 music tracks she allegedly made publicly available on the Kazaa P2P network.

However, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis of Duluth, Minnesota, ruled that he had erred in his jury instructions. Thus, the mistrial.

Recently, the RIAA stated that it will give up on threats and lawsuits, instead opting to work with ISPs to institute a “Three Strikes” rule that will result in terminating broadband for a user caught downloading. However, cases already underway are continuing.

Additionally, at least one ISP, admittedly a small one, has stated that if the RIAA wants it to “play cop,” it will have to pay the ISP.