Student Must Pay $675,000 in Downloading Case

[BayGBM]

Student Must Pay $675,000 in Downloading Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOSTON (AP) -- A Boston University student has been ordered to pay $675,000 to four record labels for illegally downloading and sharing music.

Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., admitted he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels.

Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful. The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum's case was $4.5 million.

The case is only the nation's second music downloading case against an individual to go to trial.

Last month, a federal jury in Minneapolis ruled a Minnesota woman must pay nearly $2 million for copyright infringement.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/31/business/AP-US-TEC-MusicDownload.html?hp

Ouch! 

[MRDUMPLING]

Isn't it the record label's fault for "leaking" new songs or records in the first place?

Also...what's the big deal with file sharing?  It's much ado about nothing.  My general .02.  I just never got the whole thing.

[Hulkster]

I think these fines are insane in the sense that they are being handed out to people that will never be able to pay them back..in other words, they are way too high IMO.

675K? thats like having a giant house mortgage eating away at your funds for decades, and thats not counting the real mortgate/rent/car loan/insurance/food etc ie the real world that you also have to pay for later on..