Judge grants new trial in music downloading case

September 25, 2008 By STEVE KARNOWSKI , Associated Press Writer

(AP) -- A federal judge granted a new trial to a Minnesota woman convicted of pirating music files in the nation's first file-sharing trial, ruling Wednesday he made an error in the jury instructions that "substantially prejudiced" her rights.

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• JerryPark - Sep 25, 2008
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  Unfortunate that the judge made the error. It is to his credit that he admitted the error and voided the conviction.
  
  Of course, to seek damages for illegal distribution, the plaintiffs must show that distribution happened.
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• Ghostrider1 - Sep 25, 2008
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  I really hope that the judge resets the penalty amount of the case, perhaps down to as low as only about 10X the actual cost, so $540, but to make it as much as $222,000, is extremely & utterly ridiculous. yes, she understands what she did was wrong now, but she didn't deliberately try to profit from the sale of the copyrighted material as a great many others have done in the past. Just my couple cents worth.
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