BRAINERD MUSIC DOWNLOAD CASE NOT OVER YET

Jammie Thomas' attorney Brian Toder wants a new trial. A federal jury said earlier this month that the Brainerd woman downloaded 1700 music files, and assessed damages for 24 specific tunes at just over $9,000 a song. Defense attorney Toder told the judge that she could have bought all those songs for $24 so the verdict is out of proportion, amounts to punitive damages, and therefore unconstitutional. The jury said Thomas should pay the record industry $222,000 plus attorney fees. Some jury members wanted to charge Thomas the maximum, roughly $3.6 Million. Thomas said earlier that she's innocent of the charges. Toder said he wants to challenge the amount of the verdict as well as the definition of 'copyright infringement'.