Oklahoma Mother wins $70,000 fee award against RIAA

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s “Deep Links” Blog reports:

After more than three years of litigation, a single mom who was improperly swept up in the RIAA’s P2P litigation “driftnet” has finally been vindicated. An Oklahoma court has ordered the RIAA to pay nearly seventy thousand dollars in fees and costs to defendant Debra Foster. EFF, Public Citizen, the ACLU, and the American Association of Law Libraries filed an amicus brief in the case, supporting Foster’s motion for fees.

Soon after the RIAA brought suit against Foster in 2004, it became clear that the the recording industry was pursuing the wrong person. But the RIAA not only refused to dismiss the case, it brought additional, unsupported claims of secondary infringement. Finally, two years after filing suit, the RIAA dropped the claims and attempted to walk away scot–free.