A retrial of Jammie Thomas, who has been unique in her refusal to settle with the RIAA's filesharing gestapo, has ended with an even greater jury verdict against her. This time, instead of $9,250 per song allegedly shared on Kazaa, the jury found her guilty of "willful" infringement at $80,000 per song. As if you weren't already scratching your head at the current state of copyright law (think the failure of the DMCA to account for fair use, copyright term of 70 years plus life of the author)

Despite President Nicolas Sarkozy's relentless efforts to protect copyright, the highest court in France upheld internet access to be a fundamental right for all French citizens. The President, with great support from music industry executives, had been pushing to further regulate copyright by initiating a "three strike" anti-piracy policy. The "three stike" policy would have permanently cut off internet access to those who violated copyright laws after two warnings. In April this past year, the President created HADOPI (High Authority on Diffusion of Works of Art and the Protection of the Rights on the Internet) to police copyright abusers and manage the internet cut offs. HADOPI is said to be the first internet policing agency in the democratic world. However, the Constitutional Council ruled that cutting off internet access by the HADOPI agency, without recourse to a court of law, contravened three articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, France's fundamental document setting out the rights of French citizens, breaching rights to freedom of expression and the presumption of innocence.