You may remember the story of Jammie Thomas; she was the woman convicted of sharing 24 songs on the internet via KaZaa, and sentenced to pay $222,000 for the violation.  She is currently facing a retrial, after the judge trying the case realized that the Recording Industry Artists’ Association’s (RIAA) jury instructions were based on a technical lie, which resulted in the unusually harsh sentencing.

While the case against Thomas is solid – she shared files and was caught – what makes this retrial unique is her new legal council, and the line of defense they are taking.  Her current legal council is Kiwi Camara, a student of Charles Nesson – a high-profile Harvard Law professor.  The RIAA has long put off sending thier questionably-legal “John Doe” subpoenas to Harvard; many people have suspected that someone like Nesson is the rationale for this.  As a good legal rule of thumb, it’s not in your best interests to pick a fight with the best legal minds in the world, especially when they have a chip on thier shoulders so large that they’ll work pro bono indefinitely to undermine your work.  Camara and Nesson have both spent the last month establishing the fact that that chip does exist, and that their intention is to decimate the RIAA using the copyright law the way it was meant to be used.

Today, technology site Ars  Technica reports Nesson and Camara’s intentions to bring a class-action lawsuit against the RIAA for their heavy-handed tactics.  This is based on two things:  First, the RIAA had been paying another company, Media Sentry, to wire tap personal computers and look for evidence.  As shady as this sounds, it would be perfectly legal if Media Sentry were a licensed private investigator – they are not.  While having the RIAA’s “evidence” thrown out of court is enough to elicit squeals of glee from many people, that is all it is good for, and by itself is only noteworthly to law and technology buffs.

Where Nesson and Camara take things a step further, is that Camara has asked for certified copies of the copyright applications of the creative works in question.  From the Ars article, it seems as if the RIAA pushed back extremely hard against this, but was demanded by the judge to comply.  Why is this so important?  Because, according to Camara, the copyright registrations in question don’t actually contain “specimens,” or copies of the work being copyrighted.  This is massive, because without a “specimen,” the copyright is invalid.  Furthermore, even if the judge accepts these registrations, Camara claims that the registrations are done in the name of the labels, which is a violation of work for hire law, and thus the registrations can be invalidated on this point as well.

Does this mean that soon it will be safe to share music online?  No, probably not.  The music industry is probably already changing the wording on their current registrations, and won’t make the same mistake again.

What it does mean, however, is that there is a chance that the previous copyrights may either be invalidated outright, or revert to the artists.  Let’s stop and look at this in perspective: all songs recorded by the music industry prior to June, 2009, may soon no longer belong to the major labels.

If Camara successfully pulls this trick out of his hat (and it seems like he just might), this seriously changes everything.  Keep in mind that what has allowed the music industry to stomp all over artists’ rights has always been control over the distribution channels.  John Lydon knew this back in the 80′s, and said so when asked why he didn’t start his own music label; Steve Albini particularly drove the point home in the early 90′s.

Invalidating major label ownership would essentially push the “reset” button on the music industry, and would send shockwaves throughout the way we experience music.  Artists could band together and demand control of their works again.  Pandora, as well as traditional web radio, who are being driven off the cliff by the music industry, could suddenly turn around and sue to have royalty rates dropped.  Independent music already makes up the majority of web radio content, yet the majors collect royalties on these songs.  Invalidating the copyrights on the songs the majors do own could leverage the web broadcasting powerhouses (what’s left of them) to change royalty rates for the better.  Even moreso, artists could be involved in the process, and get a better deal as well.  Speaking of the artists, they could create a class-action lawsuit against the majors, and win fair back-wages as well.  Moving forwards, royalty rates for modern distribution channels like iTunes could be renegotiated, to the artists’ benefit.

Thanks to Jammie Thomas’ absolutely accidental national attention, music could, finally, belong to the artists and the fans, which is who it should belong to.  The odds of it happening, though?  Perhaps a snowball’s chance in Hell.  But Hades has been looking a little chilly lately - and that Camara kid has one heck of an arm.