Back in June of last year, the Cartel appeared to think that getting a huge jury award against Jammie Thomas (now Thomas-Rasset) wasn't necessarily a great thing. They were willing to take USD 25,000 in order to get Judge Michael Davis to vacate his judgment that the original award was "monstrous and shocking".

So far Thomas-Rasset has refused all settlement offers (to my admitted surprise) and the case has yet to reach a higher court level where the overarching constitutional and precedential matters would be considered. The issues raised in 2009 are still hanging out there.

Steven Musil reports for CNET that the latest award, of 1.5 million will also be appealed. It will be interesting to see if the Cartel continue to make settlement offers of pennies (or hundredths of pennies) on the dollar, in order to avoid arguing the case before higher courts.