Once more, a judge has ruled against the RIAA, declaring a mistrial in Capitol v. Thomas. Will this prove the wooden stake to the music industry's vampiric heart, or just another splinter? Regular readers will remember Jammie Thomas, the Minneapolis mom who was ordered to pay $222,000 in damages to the RIAA last October — the only case to ever reach a jury in the recording industry’s ongoing war on its own customers. That ruling made everyone look bad: Thomas and her attorney, the judge and jury, and of course the record companies. Thomas’s legal beagle Brian Toder paraded some unbelievably lame defense theories (like suggesting a Wi-Fi intruder might have downloaded the files using Thomas’s IP address … only she wasn’t using Wi-Fi at the time). The jury looked like troglodytes because of the excessive damages it awarded (nearly $10,000 per song) and some jurors’ unabashed ignorance of the Internet. The judge looked like a tool because he instructed the jury that merely placing MP3 files into a shared folder on a hard drive constitutes “distribution” of the songs, even if nobody ever accesses them. And as for the record companies, well, we all know the name of that tune.The judge at least got a chance to make up for his mistake, and yesterday he did just that — reversing his own ruling about distribution and declaring a mistrial. But Thomas’s chances for success in the next go-round improved only marginally. The judge also ruled that the labels can sue for copyright infringement even if the only parties who actually downloaded songs from Thomas’s hard drive were the record companies’ own hired goons — Media Sentry. The good news: This time around Thomas has more friends on her side, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And it’s a great opportunity to sell more of those “Free Jammie T-shirts, sweatshirts, and thongs. In related news: thanks to all the Cringesters who turned this blog into a virtual karaoke bar by suggesting songs and lyrics that best describe the RIAA and its rapacious behavior. Unfortunately they’re simply all too good for me to pick one above all others. But I do admit to a sentimental favorite: the late great Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.” Do you think Jammie can prevail? Will the record companies ever just give up their scorched earth tactics? Post your thoughts or email me direct: cringe (at) infoworld (dot) com. Software DevelopmentSmall and Medium Business