Los Angeles - A federal judge has dismissed a file-sharing case brought by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against a mother of five who claimed she did not download songs, or know her children had done so, Ars Technica reported.

The defendant, Patti Santangelo, is now eligible to recover attorneys' fees from the RIAA, which also sued two of her children for copyright infringement.

A similar outcome was reached in the record industry's file-sharing case against Debbie Foster (Capitol v. Foster); the RIAA has appealed the judge's award of attorneys' fees to Foster in that case.

The circumstances of both cases also poke holes in the RIAA's "secondary infringement" argument, which says that a defendant can be liable if he or she has "a reason to know" that copyright infringement is being committed.

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http://tinyurl.com/28hzat (Ars Technica)