Judge bars RIAA president from testifying in Capitol Records v. Thomas
Duluth, Minnesota — Testimony in Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas wrapped up today after Judge Michael J. Davis decided against allowing RIAA president Cary Sherman to testify in the case.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Duluth trial is the first time the RIAA's years-long campaign of individual file-sharing suits has reached an actual jury — jury selection and opening statements began October 2, and the label side opened aggressively, with Sony BMG's chief anti-piracy lawyer arguing on the witness stand that copying music you own is stealing (Sony BMG's anti-piracy lawyer's testimony). Judge Davis barring RIAA president Cary Sherman from testifying cuts off the industry's most senior voice before the record closes.
The ruling lands on a case the labels had already trimmed for courtroom safety — they dropped the sole Virgin recording ahead of trial — and it comes amid broader reputational pressure on the RIAA's methods, including Tanya Anderson's class action over alleged investigator misconduct filed in August 2007.
First-order effects
- Jammie Thomas's defense avoids facing the RIAA's top executive in person, while Capitol Records and the other labels must rest their case on lawyers and investigators rather than policy leadership.
- Judge Davis controls the trial's evidentiary scope at its close, shaping what jurors deliberate on when the first RIAA jury trial reaches verdict.
Second-order effects
- The exclusion raises the stakes of this verdict as a template: if the industry wins without its president on the stand, future suits can stay lawyer-driven; if it loses, the RIAA faces harder questions about which witnesses its cases can survive.
- Testimony already put the campaign's economics under scrutiny — syndicated coverage of the trial noted the anti-P2P effort described as a money pit — so a barred executive testimony pushes cost-and-conduct questions onto less protected witnesses.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the RIAA's enforcement strategy tilts further toward out-of-court settlements and statutory-pressure letters — the approach its own August 2007 response guidance addressed — because full trials expose executives and investigators to scrutiny the campaign was built to avoid.
- Courtroom treatment of the labels' witnesses becomes part of how courts calibrate individual file-sharing cases generally, with judges like Davis effectively setting what evidence the industry's campaign must stand on.
The trend: The RIAA's individual file-sharing lawsuits are shifting from settlement pressure into open courtroom combat, where judges' evidentiary rulings increasingly determine how far the campaign can reach.