Regardless of its merits or impact, the music industry's file-sharing enforcement strategy over the years hasn't exactly bolstered its PR image. Multinational corporations suing average Joes isn't the best public face for an industry trying to find a way to reverse a steady sales slide.

Tanya Andersen and her daughter.

But if a 44-year-old Oregon woman has her way, the music industry--specifically the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)--is going to have a much bigger problem on its hands than a public relations conundrum.

In a lawsuit filed in US District Court for the District of Oregon, Tanya Andersen has claimed that the RIAA and several of its affiliates engaged in malicious prosecution when they sued her for illegal file sharing in 2005.

According to Anderson, not only was the lawsuit misguided--the RIAA dismissed the case with prejudice earlier this month, meaning that the RIAA must pick up her attorney's fees--it was illegal. In her complaint, Andersen, a single mother who is disabled, seeks to portray the RIAA's actions as organized crime, saying the case against her amounted to a larger criminal enterprise that violated the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

Andersen also alleges claims for negligence, infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and deceptive business practices.

The RIAA has wielded its legal wrath against plenty of people who have cried foul in the past, but what makes Andersen's claim compelling, among other things, is her claim that the RIAA tried to interview her then-7-year-old daughter without her knowledge.

The RIAA's 2005 suit against Andersen claimed that she had illegally shared her library of "gangster rap" over the P2P network Kazaa, basing that claim on an Internet Protocol (IP) address that it linked to her computer.

Andersen immediately denied the claim, saying she was into country and soft rock and provided the RIAA with the identity and contact info of a man who she claimed was behind the Kazaa account that the RIAA said was hers.

Andersen's filing could potentially become a class-action lawsuit if other alleged wrongly named defendants follow her lead. Stay tuned...