A Boston federal appeals court ordered a Boston University graduate student to pay $675,000 in damages for illegally downloading 30 songs, according to reports.
The Recording Industry Association of America sued Joel Tenenbaum, a physics doctoral candidate in the College of Arts and Sciences, on behalf of four record labels for sharing music on the Internet in 2005.
In 2009, a jury ordered Tenenbaum to pay $675,000, a cost of $22,500 per song downloaded, but a U.S. district judge reduced the charge to $67,500, ruling the original award unconstitutional and abusive.
In an interview with The Daily Free Press last May, Tenenbaum argued that the law was outdated and unfair.
“It’s both a literal generation gap in terms of our generation as compared to the generation of people who are not digital natives,” Tenenbaum told The DFP. “There’s also some sort of legal generation gap, if you will, in terms of the fact that these laws were written at a time when basically it was just as the digital age was emerging.”
Despite the 2009 ruling, Associated Press reported on Monday that Tenenbaum and his lawyers, a team of student volunteers headed by Harvard Law professor Charlie Nesson, decided to appeal to overturn the penalty. The RIAA appealed to have the original penalty reinstated.
In his appeal, Tenenbaum argued against the constitutionality of the U.S. Copyright Act as a law intending to prohibit consumer copying. He additionally argued that Sony did not deserve monetary damages without demonstrating harm.
RIAA lawyers countered his reasoning, arguing that the cost of illegal downloading is much greater than the sharing of one song.
The ruling issued by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday said the 2009 penalty reduction should not have been based on the constitutional grounds when common law practice allows a judge to reduce excessive jury verdicts. The appeals court sent the case back to the lower court, which will reconsider reducing the judgment based on excessiveness.
“We are pleased the court agreed with us that the finding of liability was correct and that the District Court erred in finding the verdict unconstitutional,” said Jennifer Pariser, RIAA’s senior vice president for litigation and legal affairs to AP.
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