It's been a while since we've had news in the ongoing battle over illegal file sharing between the music industry and its fans.

The Recording Industry Association of America has been on course to wipe-out illegal music downloading by suing alleged file traders for large sums of money.

It's worked well so far, but last week things took a turn.

Last week, a judge ordered the RIAA to pay Tanya Andersen over $100,000 in legal fees from a suit against Andersen that was dropped last year.

Some of you may recall Anderson's story, a single mother of a young child who the RIAA claimed downloaded over 1,000 songs and owed them millions in damages as a result.

Anderson vehemently denied the charges and fought the RIAA's attempts to try and question her daughter, who was 7-years-old at the time. What made the case remarkable is the questionable tactics used by the RIAA in its investigation, that included attempts to get personal information on Anderson through her landlord and possibly trying to contact her daughter through her school.

The case was busted after it was uncovered that the RIAA had pegged the file sharing account to the wrong person.

Obviously Maine has not been immune to the RIAA's reach as a number of students at pretty much every campus in the state have seen a settlement letter from the RIAA.

But you might also remember that some University of Maine School of Law students decided to fight back. Lisa Chmelecki and Hannah Ames took the cases through the law school's legal-aid clinic, which was understandably swamped with questions once the RIAA claimed students owed them thousands of dollars.

The two and law professor Deirdre Smith argued that the information being used by the RIAA to prosecute students does not meet standards set by the Supreme Court.

The case hit a pothole in January when a judge recommended that the motion to dismiss the RIAA's lawsuits not go forward and sent on the opinion to the U.S. District Court.

It looks to be a long, hard, uphill battle against an opponent with much deeper pockets. But if last week's ruling for Anderson is any sign, it's that music fans may be able to give the industry a taste of it's own (wallet-sapping) medicine.

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