US file-sharer gets $700,000 fine

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US file-sharer gets $700,000 fine
Saturday, 1 August 2009 02:54 UK

A US student has been ordered to pay $675,000 (£404,000) to four record labels for breaking copyright laws after sharing music online.

The Boston University student, Joel Tenenbaum, had admitted in court that he had downloaded and distributed 30 songs at issue in the case.
It is the second such case to go to trial in the US.

In the first case, a woman in Minneapolis was ordered to pay $1.92m for sharing 24 songs.

On Friday, the jury ordered Mr Tenebaum to pay $22,500 for each infringement. The maximum that he could have been fined was $4.5m.
Following the ruling, he said he was glad the fine had not been in the millions.

"That to me sends a message of 'We considered your side with some legitimacy'," he said, according to the Associated Press news agency.
But his lawyer said the verdict was not fair and that he planned to appeal.

'Loved technology'

Mr Tenenbaum used a computer at his parents' home and at his college to download and distribute digital files. Prosecutors working on behalf of the record labels focused on 30 shared songs. Under US law, the recording companies are entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. However, the jury can raise the amount to $150,000 per track if it finds the infringements were willful - a matter that they will debate now that the judge has ruled Mr Tenenbaum violated copyright laws. In the Minnesota case, the jury awarded $80,000 per song.

On the stand, Mr Tenenbaum admitted that he had downloaded more than 800 songs since 1999 and that he had lied in pre-trial proceedings when he suggested that other family members of friends may have been responsible for downloading songs to his computer. "I used the computer. I uploaded, I downloaded music," he told the court under questioning from his own lawyer, Charles Nesson. He said he had used Napster and then Kazaa to download the files. "It was like this giant library in front of you," he said. In opening remarks on Tuesday, Mr Tenenbaum's lawyer said he "was a kid who did what kids do and loved technology and loved music". Recording companies had been slow to adapt to the internet, he added. But prosecutors argued that file-sharers take a significant toll on the revenues for artists and others involved in music

'Got off easy'

The recording industry has recently changed its tactics in file-sharing cases, preferring to settle quickly for much smaller amounts. However, cases such as those against Mr Tenenbaum, which were already filed, are proceeding to trial. The four recording labels involved in the case are subsidiaries of Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony. Kevin Cullen of the Boston Globe said Mr Tenenbaum had "got off easy" compared to the Minnesota case. "I went through the song list of what he was actually convicted of downloading and my favourite one was Beck's Loser," he told BBC News.


:source: Source: US file-sharer gets $700,000 fine

Wow, things are getting serious !

He's a student, he's got no money, lmao

Quote:

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Originally Posted by digmen1

Wow, things are getting serious !

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If you do the crime you've got to do the time.

....

:fst:

30 X $1 = $30. Anything else is ridiculous!

His biggest mistake was admitting to anything. I thought Charles Nesson was supposed to be the giant-slaying law professor. Seems like a pretty lame strategy to have your client admit guilt. Perhaps the record industry was threatening to go after his family's assets...

Certainly not good news for those who enjoy online freedoms or free exchange of information.

3 years of vocation in Federal Pris and he will be back ,

OMFG. Another complete idiot who uses Kazaa. Arent people catching on that Kazaa is not the best way to get music. I have yet to see such a case where a What or Waffles user is slapped with a fine. ( Has there been a case such as this where a torrent user was caught and fined some random ass sum of money? )

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xuxoxux

Has there been a case such as this where a torrent user was caught and fined some random ass sum of money? )

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I don't know about users (but I'm sure there are many) but I remember a case in '06, where underage torrent admins got fined and in recent news with TPB crew (R.I.P)

Here's the '06 case

http://torrentfreak.com/underage-fin...ed-60000-each/

This is stupid,are you gonna pay your student loans or settle some ridiculous fines to people that obviously don't need it?
But i guess its one for them again,that's 3 in a row.

Good thing though is that all these prosecutions have been as a result of what we all try to avoid,insecure file sharing avenues.kazaa and emule are way past their sell by date,the reason why people are still using them is beyond me.Do not download from thepiratebay,don't torrent in a college environment(trust me,VPNs won't help you),use external hard drives,stream instead of downloading,get a seedbox,read on SSH tunneling,stick to private trackers,use RS and one click hosts,give usenet a thought,pm me for info on free graboid,if something doesn't feel right then by all means think of settling(you can safely ignore all the other notices though)

People need to learn from this,its not worthy to have a life mortgaged on some one sided concept of online intellectual property.

yeah sound like this guy doesn't know what he's doing