This case is notable for being both the first major file-sharing case in the US over the P2P activity of a regular user; multiple court cases and the vast swings in damages; and the size of the damages awarded, despite the lack of evidence. (For those commenters that like to claim she stole, had it been a theft case, she’d have won years ago)

The appeals court sent things back to the original $222,000 award back in September, which has now paved the way for an appeal to the US Supreme Court, if it’ll hear it (they didn’t hear Tenenbaum, or Harper).

It’s unlikely to go well for Thomas as the Supreme Court is very pro-copyright, putting work back under copyright that had already entered the public domain in a case earlier this year.

Nor will the artists allegedly harmed by piracy benefit much. In the (extremely unlikely) event of Thomas finding some way to come up with the cash, it won’t go to the artists, as we’ve seen before with the Limewire settlement last year, or the Pirate Bay case. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise us if the artists were being billed for the hundreds of thousands of dollars this case has cost to prosecute.

The only winners out of all this are music industry lawyers, and what does that say for how well copyright is working?

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Supreme Court has refused to hear his case. While this is not the be-all-and-end-all for the case, it’s another roadblock.

At issue was the matter of excessive damages, specifically the statutory damages that allow for between $750-$150,000 per infringement.

In their brief, Tenenbaum’s lawyer is reported by the Boston Globe as saying “This pernicious interpretation of the Copyright Act transforms every bit of cyberspace into a potentially exploding lawsuit and is sparking the development of a spam-litigation industry”. He is, of course, referring to the many copyright trolls we’ve covered in recent weeks and months.

Regardless, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, without comment.

Meanwhile the case is not over. The sole issue being referred to the Supreme Court was the constitutionality of the damages, not the merits of the case in any form.

The trial judge had already reduced the damages awarded to $65,000 before having it restored by the 1^st US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Nancy Gertner could still reduce the damages again, but in doing so the RIAA and it’s member studios can ask for a retrial. This has happened twice with Jammie Thomas in a similar case. It’s an option Tenenbaum has expressed support for in the past.

Who knows when this case, which started in 2004, will end, and how much more court time will be taken up .

Meanwhile, the real winners are the lawyers for the RIAA (and to a lesser extend the government), racking up fee’s despite having a poor record of getting any kind of money for artists.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.