• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 13, 2009

A federal judge has handed the recording industry a partial victory in a lawsuit by a woman who was exonerated of copyright infringement.

U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown dismissed Oregon resident Tanya Andersen's claims stemming from the Recording Industry Association of America's initial decision to sue her. Brown ruled that the RIAA had the right to sue Andersen because the organization "could have reasonably believed there was a chance that their copyright-infringement claims" were valid.

But Brown's ruling allows Andersen to proceed with claims against the RIAA for negligence, abuse of process and conspiracy for allegedly continuing with the case after evidence surfaced proving her innocence.

The record labels sued Andersen in 2005, alleging that she was making thousands of tracks available through Kazaa. The charges were based on an investigation by MediaSentry, which alleged that it had tied the tracks to Andersen's IP address.

That allegation turned out to be wrong, but Andersen spent two years defending herself in court before the record industry withdrew its case. Andersen sought to recover attorney's fees from the RIAA, and last year, a federal judge ordered the organization to pay her $108,000.

She also filed a potential class-action lawsuit against the RIAA on behalf of everyone who had been wrongly accused of file-sharing.

The RIAA sought dismissal of all claims related to its decision to initiate litigation on the grounds that it has the right to seek redress in court for copyright infringement.

While Brown ruled in favor of the RIAA on that point, her decision still allows Andersen to proceed on narrow grounds -- that the RIAA wrongly continued with its litigation after it should have dropped the case.

Andersen's lawyer, Lory Lybeck of Mercer Island, Wash., says he's considering whether to attempt to file an immediate appeal of the ruling. "We thought there was sufficient evidence in the record to show that the manner in which the RIAA determined who to sue was obviously defective."

But he says he anticipates going forward with the lawsuit even if the ruling stands. "We've represented a number of people who were wrongfully sued, and the suits were continued against them even after it was obvious they were not the quote 'infringing' parties," he says.

Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation and legal affairs at the RIAA, praised Brown's ruling. "We are pleased that the court ruled in our favor and found that the industry is justified in bringing these cases," she said in a statement. "We hope the court agrees that the class allegations and the remainder of plaintiffs' claims should also be dismissed."