The Recording Industry Association of America taketh away, but must it also give?

The music-industry lobbying-and-litigation arm is protesting a federal magistrate's recommendation that it cough up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for an Oregon woman. Tanya Andersen, 42, says she racked up the expenses defending against an RIAA infringement lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed for lack of evidence.

The RIAA dropped the case this summer against Andersen, months after concluding her hard drive didn't contain any purloined music tracks. The RIAA sued her two years ago, alleging a Kazaa shared directory that linked to her internet-protocol address was unlawfully distributing thousands of songs -- a case Andersen's lawyers decried as "frivolous."

The RIAA is arguing in court documents that the association shouldn't have to pay defense counsel fees, because Andersen is probably guilty anyway. "It would be an extraordinary coincidence indeed if this defendant had nothing to do with infringement at issue in this matter," RIAA attorney William Patton wrote in opposition to the payout.

Andersen's lawyers said Thursday their legal fees could surpass the $222,000 that a Duluth, Minnesota, jury recently ordered Minnesotan Jammie Thomas to pay the RIAA for pilfering 24 songs, the first such case to actually reach trial.

The defense tab in the case they dropped "may exceed the amount the RIAA is publicly crowing about in the absurd verdict against Jammie Thomas," said Ben Justus, one of Andersen's attorneys. "It's not appropriate to sue somebody without evidence they had done anything illegal."

A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for Oregon is reviewing the motion for fees and could rule any time.

Patton wrote in court records that the RIAA dropped the Andersen case because "the computer inspection was inconsistent and inconclusive insofar as digital evidence of the infringing sound recordings could not be found." The RIAA added that it "agreed, in good faith, to dismiss their claims against defendant."

If awarded fees, the payout would help fuel a countersuit Andersen is pressing against the RIAA, Justus said.

That countersuit, also in the Oregon federal court, seeks class-action status to represent "those who were sued or were threatened with suit by defendants for file-sharing, downloading or other similar activities, who have not actually engaged in actual copyright infringement." The lawsuit alleges "the class is comprised of many thousands of individuals."

In the last four years, the RIAA has sued more than 20,000 people alleging copyright infringement. The majority of them have settled for a few thousand dollars.

Since the RIAA launched its first lawsuits targeting individuals in September 2003, it has been ordered just once to pay defense costs to someone falsely accused. On Aug. 16, a federal judge ordered the RIAA to pay $68,685 in litigation costs to two Oklahoma women whose case was dismissed.

I'm not entirely certain who I think ought to win that one. I'd want both to lose.... it's a similar feeling as to what lefties feel when thinking of Cheney and Limbaugh in a fight to the death.