While Judge Chin notes that the settlement can have positive affects on the public, he states, "It would appear that if a fair and reasonable settlement can be struck, the public would benefit. Under all the circumstances, it makes no sense to conduct a hearing on the fairness and reasonableness of the current settlement agreement, as it does not appear that the current settlement will be the operative one."

Instead of the hearing, the court will hold a status conference to review next steps to the case. To view the order visit the Google Book Settlement Page.

Photo Credit: Timothy Vollmer

After the verdict, Thomas-Rasset told the Associated Press that the penalty was "kind of ridiculous," but also pointed out that she simply can't pay $2 million, so she is "not going to worry about it now."

As we pointed out in our earlier stories about this trial, the evidence clearly incriminated Thomas-Rasset, and the jury found that her conduct was willful. According to the Copyright Act, the jury could have awarded the music companies between $750 and $150,000 per song, but the jury, which clearly wasn't convinced by Thomas-Rasset's defense, came down in the middle at $80,000.

Could They Still Settle?

Ars Technica's Nate Anderson points out that RIAA spokesperson, Cara Duckworth, told reporters that the recording industry would still be willing to settle with Thomas-Rasset.

It seems like the RIAA is mostly interested in setting a precedent here, and if the two parties do eventually settle on a much smaller number (typically these cases ended in $5000 settlements), it surely wouldn't get the attention this current verdict received, leaving most of the public under the impression that a $80,000 fine per shared song is a real possibility.

Hard Drives, Best Buy, Kazaa, Terrastar, and Soft Drinks

There are considerable holes in Thomas' story, however. Among other things, she took her computer to Best Buy to get her hard drive replaced under warranty, exactly two weeks after MediaSentry informed her that she had been caught sharing these files. She then went ahead and brought this new drive in as evidence and swore under oath that the hard drive had been in the computer since 2004. According to a witness from Best Buy at today's trial, the drive must have been dead when Thomas took it in for repair, but it would be impossible to tell if she broke it accidentally (as she claims), or if this was done on purpose (breaking a hard drive is pretty easy, after all).

During the first day of her retrial, however, an expert witness who examined Thomas's computer also noted that an external hard drive had been hooked up to the computer, a fact that was new to the defense attorney.

Thomas' defense lawyers also produced a list of Thomas' purchases at Best Buy, but, as our friends at Ars Technica point out, if this was meant to show that Thomas was still buying a lot of music, this plan backfired, as she had bought a lot of soft drinks (seriously?), DVDs, and video games at Best Buy, but only one CD.

Thomas also generally used 'terrastar' as her handle, and the files on Kazaa were shared under that name. Given that Thomas' computer was password protected, what's the chance of somebody else using her login? In addition, Thomas also claims that she had never heard of Kazaa before this whole affair began.

It will be for the jury to decide if she is really guilty of these charges (judging from what we have seen, our best guess is that she will be found guilty), but the real problem isn't even really about her guilt or innocence. The real question here is if she really inflicted over $200,000 in damages by sharing 24 songs, as the music industry claims (or any damage at all). When the previous judge, Judge Michael Davis, Chief Justice of the Minnesota District Court, granted Thomas this retrial, he argued that the actual cost of the songs would be under $54 and implored Congress to address these damages, which he considered disproportionate, especially because Thomas didn't try to profit from her act.