Don't believe Cary Sherman, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America, when he told a National Public Radio audience that Sony BMG's anti-piracy chief had misspoken during her testimony in the copyright infringement trial against Jammie Thomas.

And if Sherman was telling the truth during that NPR interview, Thomas was the victim of a miscarriage of justice – despite the mountain of evidence against her.

Here's the skinny:

In October, a Minnesota federal jury found Thomas liable for copyright infringement and dinged her $222,000 for unlawfully sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa file-sharing network in what was and still is the nation's first and only RIAA case against an individual to go to trial. Most of the RIAA's 20,000 or more lawsuits have settled out of court.

During Thomas' trial in Duluth, RIAA attorney Richard Gabriel asked Sony's Jennifer Pariser if it was OK for a consumer to make one copy of a track that was legally purchased. No, she replied, saying that's "a nice way of saying, steals just one copy."

On Thursday, while debating a Washington Post reporter, Sherman told an NPR audience that Pariser "actually misspoke in that trial."

"I know because I asked her after stories started appearing. It turns out that she had misheard the question. She thought that this was a question about illegal downloading when it was actually a question about ripping CDs," Sherman said. "That is not the position of Sony BMG. That is not the position of that spokesperson. That is not the position of the industry."

One of the reasons jurors dinged Thomas was because she forked over to RIAA investigators a different hard drive than the one industry snoops detected her using on Kazaa in 2005. On the hard drive she did turn over were thousands of songs Thomas said she ripped from her CDs.

The RIAA's Gabriel suggested to jurors that copying one's purchased music was a violation of the Copyright Act.

Gabriel, for example, asked Thomaswhether she had ever burned CDs, either for herself, or to give away to friends.

"Did you get permission from the copyright owners to do that?" Gabriel asked.

"No," Thomas responded.

Gabriel, the RIAA's lead attorney, apparently misspoke too – prejudicing jurors along the way.

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis is weighing a motionfrom Thomas to lower the award or grant a new trial. She claims the Copyright Act, and the maximum $150,000 fine for each violation, is unconstitutionally excessive. THREAT LEVEL wonders what are the odds the RIAA would file papers with Davis explaining the misstatements?

UPDATE: RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said in an e-mail message that Pariser "was quoted out of context and believed the question referred to downloads, not physical copies." THREAT LEVEL rests its case.

Photo chazlarson

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