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In 2006, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was sent a letter asking her to settle (for $3300) over alleged unauthorized file sharing of 24 tracks.

She refused and decided to take the case to court.

In 2007, Thomas-Rasset was found liable for $1.92 million in damages, but a retrial saw the fine dropped to $220,000. In 2010, however, a judge reduced the award to $54,000. The RIAA told Thomas-Rasset that they would accept $25,000, if she would agree to ask the judge to remove the decision from the record. She did not accept the terms of the deal and the trial went to part 3. Later that year, Thomas lost again in court, with a jury finding her liable for $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages. The Minnesota woman appealed.

Fast forward to today, and it appears that another judge has reduced the verdict to $54,000 again, calling the original jury award "appalling."

The RIAA has said it is considering appealing in what has to be the longest saga ever involving pirated music tracks.

Zurich American Insurance has sued today, asking a court to declare that it does not have to pay to defend Sony against class-action suits related to the PSN security breach.

The company does not want to "defend or indemnify Sony against any claims asserted in the class-action lawsuits, miscellaneous claims, or potential future actions instituted by any state attorney general."

Additionally, the insurance company has sued Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, AIG and ACE asking the court to "clarify their responsibilities under policies" written for Sony.

Adds attorney Richard Bortnick, of a firm not involved with the case (via Retuers):

Zurich doesn't think there's coverage, but to the extent there may be a duty to defend it wants to make sure all of the insurers with a potential duty to defend are contributing.

The company plans to argue that the general liability insurance they wrote for the electronics company does not cover cyber attacks.

In April, a massive attack on the PSN managed to net hackers personal details on 100 million users. Sony has the attack will cost them $178 million this year and is looking for insurers to help pay.

Thanks to strong sales of the Xbox 360 hardware, Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division saw its profit double, on strong revenue.

There were 13.7 million Xbox sold in 2011, up from 10.3 million in 2010, with profits growing from $618 million to $1.32 billion.

Said the company in a statement:

Entertainment & Devices Division revenue grew 30% for the fourth quarter and 45% for the full year, due to the ongoing momentum of the console, Kinect, and Xbox Live. Xbox 360 has been the top-selling game console in the U.S. over the past twelve months.

Additionally:

EDD revenue increased primarily reflecting higher Xbox 360 platform revenue. Xbox 360 platform revenue grew $2.7 billion or 48%, led by increased volumes of Xbox 360 consoles, sales of Kinect sensors, and higher Xbox LIVE revenue.

Overall, the company saw $17.37 billion revenue for the Q4.

The Winklevoss twins have been shut down, once again, in their quest to squeeze more money out of Facebook.

US District Judge Douglas Woodlock granted Facebook's request for a dismissal and did not even provide a reasoning.

Original story after the break.

Zhang Chunjiang, former vice chairman of China Mobile, has been sentenced to death today following a bribery conviction.

Chunjiang was accused of accepting over $1.15 million in bribes while working for state-owned telecoms between 1994 and 2009.

Fortunately for the exec, his sentence offers a two-year reprieve before execution meaning Zhang can get his sentenced reduced to life in prison for good behavior over the next 24 months.

Before China Mobile, Zhang worked as a deputy director the Liaoning Provincial Postal administration and as a general manager of China Netcom Group.

The sentence would not be the first time a Chinese exec has been executed over corruption charges, with the the head of the country's Food and Drug Administration being executed just this week, says PCM.

In March, Netflix confirmed it had beaten out HBO and AMC for the drama "House of Cards," starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher, the man behind 'Fight Club' and 'The Social Network,' among other hits.

'House of Cards' will be Netflix' first original program, and puts the company in direct competition with HBO and Showtime, which have had years of original hits that have helped raise their subscriber bases.

Today, it appears that Netflix will be bidding on their second original program, a comedy series from Jenji Kohan, the mind behind "Weeds" on Showtime.

The streaming and DVD rental company is currently in talks with Lionsgate TV over the show.

While details are still shaky, the show will allegedly be based on the Piper Kerman memoir 'Orange Is the New Black: My Year In a Women's Prison.' Kerman spent a year in a minimum-security prison in Connecticut for a small part in a money laundering scheme and met a number of colorful characters.

One week after the company announced 10 million Google+ users, Google has now hit the next milestone, 20 million users.

The latest data comes via comScore, who says over 5 million are in the U.S., alone.

Says the research firm: "It is definitely the fastest ascent to 20 million visitors that I can think of."

For raw comparison, it took Twitter 750 days to reach its first 10 million, and Facebook 825 days to hit the same milestone, but of course those numbers are skewed given that they were pioneers of "social media" and startups.

CEO Larry Page noted during last week's earnings call that Google+ will remain in "field trial" open beta for the time being as it continues to expand access and functionality.

Apple says Mac OS X Lion (10.7) is the biggest OS launch in the company's history.

The OS cost $30 and is only available as a digital download to those Mac users running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.

Says Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing:

Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic. Lion is a huge step forward, it’s not only packed with innovative features but it’s incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we’ve ever made.

Lion has 250 new features, with a lot relating to Mac App Store support.

LucasArts and Microsoft have just unveiled the Limited Edition Kinect Star Wars bundle, which includes an R2-D2-themed console.

Additionally, the bundle has a white Kinect sensor (normally black) and a gold controller.

The console will make R2-D2's beep when turned on, or when a game is inserted.

Finally, the console will have a 320GB HDD.

LucasArts says the limited edition console will go on sale sometime in 2011 for $450 and include the Star Wars Kinect game.

Samsung has said today that they will offer the Nexus S flagship Android phone via AT&T.

Starting on July 24th, the flagship will go on sale for $99 with 2-year contract, six months after being released for rival carriers and unlocked.

Sprint recently dropped the price on the device to $99 with contract, as well.

The device has Android 2.3, a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen, 1GHz processor, NFC and dual cameras.

Unfortunately, the phone does not have LTE support.

According to a new report from research group Strategy Analytics, Android has jumped to 30 percent market share, taking a large bite out of Apple's once near-100 percent share.

The report says there were just 100,000 Android tablets shipped in the Q2 2010, but that number has jumped to 4.6 million as of the latest quarter.

Apple sold 9.3 million tablets in the last quarter (good for 61.3 percent share), and growth does not appear to be slowing for either mobile operating system.

In July 2010, Android had a 3 percent share, but SA says that number is now 30.1 percent.

Director Neil Mawston says (via TG):

No Android vendor yet offers a blockbuster model to rival the iPad, and demand for many Android vendors' products remains patchy.

If Amazon decides to enter the Android tablet category later this year, that will bring fresh excitement and buzz to the Android community, but Amazon will need to deliver a truly standout offering if it really wants to make headway against the popular iPad.

Thanks to Nokia's latest earnings report we now know that Apple has become the largest smartphone seller in the world, surpassing Nokia.

The Finnish company said it shipped 16.7 million smartphones last quarter, down 34 percent year-over-year.

Apple recently just announced a record 20.3 million iPhone sales, up 142 percent year-over-year.

Additionally, Apple is making much more money per phone, with revenue of $13.3 billion compared to Nokia's $3.4 billion.

A chart via Splatf:

Roku has updated its popular line of set-top boxes for 2011, adding gaming, a bluetooth motion remote and a much smaller form factor.

'Angry Birds' is the first game available for the boxes and its free if you buy the Roku 2 XS.

Cutting size down significantly, the Roku 2 boxes are just 3.3-inches, and under 1-inch high.

As with previous set-tops, Roku 2 owners will have access to 250 streaming media channels, most notably Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant among sports channels like MLB, NHL, NBA and UFC.

The low-end Roku 2 HD will sell for $60 with 720p output, the Roku 2 XD will sell for $80 with 1080p output and the flagship Roku 2 XS will sell for $100 including an ethernet port, USB port and 1080p output.

Each box will use 802.11n Wi-Fi and include a MicroSD slot but the remote is not bundled with the cheapest model.

The hacktivist group 'Anonymous' has released a 'restricted' North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) document today, dated from 2007.

At 36-pages, the document outlines budget and equipment needs for a new "HQ ISAF JOINT CIS CONTROL CENTRE."

Anonymous also said it has over 1GB of NATO documents but they will not reveal as it would be "irresponsible" to do so.

The group says the data was stolen via "a simple injection."

Taking a final shot at the FBI, the group also added:

Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir.

For anyone who has seen the critically acclaimed 'The Social Network,' it was very clear what former Harvard president Larry Summers thought of the Winklevoss twins (it wasn't good).

Today, Summers reaffirmed his view, calling the twins a pair of "***holes."

Says Summers:

Rarely, have I encountered such swagger, and I tried to respond in kind. One of the things you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on Thursday afternoon at three o'clock, there are two possibilities. One is that they're looking for a job and have an interview; the other is that they are an a**hole. This was the latter case.

Along with Harvard classmate, Divya Narendra, the twins filed suit against Facebook in 2004 alleging that the concept for Facebook was stolen from them and their early work on HarvardConnection.

In 2008, Facebook agreed to settle, giving the trio a deal worth $65 million ($45 million in stock), with the majority in Facebook stock.

With Facebook now valued at $100 billion the Winklevoss/Narendra shares in Facebook are worth just over $300 million, an appreciation of 660 percent in just three years.

For more information on the ongoing trial against Facebook, check here: UPDATE: The Winklevoss twins just can't let Facebook suit die