Court orders student Joel Tenenbaum to pay $675G for illegally downloading music -- again
BY Philip Caulfield
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, September 20th 2011, 9:06 AM
Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University grad student, has to pay $675,000 for downloading music illegally, an appeals court ruled.
A Boston University grad student must pay a $675,000 fine for illegally downloading music off the Web, an appeals court ruled Friday.
Joel Tenenbaum, 28, of Providence, R.I., was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2009 for pirating 30 tunes on peer-to-peer networks and ordered to pay the hefty fine, about $22,500 per song.
But a district court later found the penalty "unconstitutionally excessive" and cut the penalty by 90% to $67,500.
On Friday, an appeals judge reversed that ruling and called for the physics PhD student to pay up.
"I am kind of dumbstruck," Tenenbaum told the Associated Press. "This is obviously more absurd than it was before."
His attorney, Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, didn't comment on the ruling.
The RIAA, which sued on behalf of four record labels, said in a statement that they were pleased with the verdict.
Tenenbaum still has a shot to get the fine reduced; the appeals judge kicked the case back to the lower court and asked it to consider his appeal based on excessiveness, not the constitutionality of copyright law.
With News Wire Services
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2011/09/20/2011-09-20_court_orders_student_joel_tenenbaum_to_pay_675g_for_illegally_downloading_music_.html
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