Judge Michael Davis is the senior federal jurist in Minnesota. He presides over the gleaming 15th floor courtroom where P2P user Jammie Thomas-Rasset was slapped with $1.92 million in damages for sharing 24 songs. Davis made no comment on the amount of the award and showed no emotion as it was read out.

But now we know how he rely feels about the jury's work in that case: it led to a "monstrous and shocking" damage award that veered into "the realm of gross injustice." Davis used his power of remittitur today to slash the damage award by 97.2%, from $1.92 million down to $54,000 - and he suggested that even this lower amount was too high.

Davis also notes that statutory damages, which range from $750 up to $150,000 per infringement in copyright cases, have both a deterrent and a compensatory purpose. It's no good to argue that a damage award is too high simply because it's higher than actual damages suffered; that's part of the point.

But there are limits, and $80,000 per song exceeded them. "Although Plaintiffs were not required to prove their actual damages, statutory damages must still bear some relation to actual damages," Davis wrote.

He noted the difference between what Thomas-Rasset did and the commercial infringement the statutory damage laws were written to stop. "In the case of individuals who infringe by using peer‐to‐peer networks, the potential gain from infringement is access to free music, not the possibility of hundreds of thousands - or even millions - of dollars in profits," he wrote. "The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music."

Because of the Seventh Amendment's guarantee to a trial by jury, Davis' decision to change the damage award means the RIAA has to make a choice: it can accept the new $54,000 award or it can exercise its right to go back to a jury for a third full trial.

We asked the RIAA for comment, but the music trade group and its members will only say that they are weighing their options. Davis has given them one week to decide.