Actually, it was a farce from the beginning. But what do you call it when an inherent farce devolves into a an even bigger farce?

Details here and here.

This is an increasingly familiar pattern. Otherwise truthful people seem to have no problems lying in legal proceedings when they perceive the underlying laws and system is inherently unfair and stacked against them. That is why you see examples such as this and others such as music downloaders claiming that somebody else must have used their computer without their knowledge. In the end, more and more individuals are likely to conclude that it is easier to commit perjury as a potential shortcut remedy when faced with a lengthy and expensive legal entanglement with media conglomerates.

I sympathize with these people. If you want people to have respect for the law and the legal system, you must first make sure that you have laws and a legal system that is worthy of respect. Can you honestly say that this is the case when it comes to the current state of copyright law?

Is there any chance the dishonest "I didn't do it" defense will some time change into a honest "I did it and it was my right to do so"?

What about posing the hypothetical "What if someone else was using my computer?" as opposed to just (falsely) declaring it? The burden of proof is with the prosecution, so they should have to prove that it couldn't have happened that way. The defendant shouldn't have to say what really happened either way (5th Amendment). The prosecution needs to prove culpability as well as offense, and in most of these copyright cases against non-publishers (non-profiting anyway), they have zero proof of either.