A federal judge on Wednesday cleared the way for file swappingdefendant Tanya Andersen to seek attorney's fees and file a counterclaim against the RIAA over a botched copyright infringement suit.
The RIAA began pursuing copyright infringement charges against Andersen well over two years ago; since then, she claims to have tallied hundreds of thousands of dollars defending herself against charges that she distributed music illegally through the Kazaa file sharing network under the name "gotenkito."
The RIAA's case was dismissed with prejudice due to lack of evidence (an RIAA expert failed to find any evidence on Andersen's computer that she had shared files).
The "with prejudice" aspect of the judgment means that each party can tryto get the other to pay their attorneys' fees. Magistrate judge DonaldC. Ashmanska already ruled that the RIAA would have to pay some or all ofAnderson's fees, after all of the threats
it made against her.
That ruling was affirmed yesterday by DistrictJudge James A. Redden, so now the RIAA definitely will have to pay some portion of the fees to Anderson, according to Recording Industry vs. the People. The only question is how much they will owe.
In addition to the fees, Andersen has said she will continue to pursue her counterclaims against the RIAA.
(recordingindustryvsthepeople; via p2pnet; image from p2pnet)
