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The main reason she was given a new trial was that the RIAA could not prove that anyone actually downloaded any of the songs from her. They told the judge that other jurisdictions had ruled that "making available" (IE just the act of having a song in her shared directory) was enough to count as copyright infringement, and the judge passed that information on to the jury.
However, it turns out that not only is the RIAA incorrect when they made that statement (actual distribution is required for copyright infringement), but that they even knew that it had been already ruled against them in a higher court. In other words, the RIAA was blatantly lying to the judge in order to try to get him to prejudice the jury in their favor.
It's not at all surprising that the judge granted her a new trial when he found out. What is surprising is that action has not been taken against the RIAA's lawyers for lying to the judge.
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