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A Boston University student has failed in his attempt to have theU.S. Supreme Court overturn his $675,000 penalty for illegallydownloading 30 songs and sharing them on the internet. Joel Tenenbaum, a graduate student from Providence, R.I., was oneof the first two people to fight the RIAA in court over online filesharing. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Associated Press) The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from JoelTenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., who was successfully sued by theRecording Industry Association of America for sharing music onpeer-to-peer networks. The RIAA said he downloaded songs and mademusic files available for distribution on the Kazaa file-sharingnetwork in 2004. In 2009, a jury ordered Tenenbaum to pay $675,000, or $22,500 for each song he downloadedand shared. A federal judge called that unconstitutionally excessive , but the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston reinstatedthe penalty at the request of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, WarnerBrothers Records Inc. and other record labels represented by theRIAA. The lower-court judge will have a new opportunity to look at thecase and could again order the penalty reduced, using differentlegal reasoning. 1st ever case Tenenbaum and Jammie Thomas-Rasset were the first two defendants inRIAA-instigated trials over online file sharing. Thomas-Rasset, a mother from Minnesota who shared 24 songs over theinternet, has had the damage award against her fluctuate as hercase passed through the courts. She was at one point ordered to pay$1.9 million US in damages, but more recently the amount wasreduced to $54,000, which the record companies are appealing. The RIAA launched thousands of lawsuits against alleged filesharers in the United States between 2003 and 2008, when theindustry group announced it was backing off from its legal blitz.Most of those cases settled out of court for a few thousanddollars. The association spent far more on legal fees in pursuing thoselawsuits than it ever recovered in settlements and damages. No one has been successfully sued in Canada for downloading musicor sharing it online. Most forms of music copying for "private use"are expressly legal under the Copyright Act. With files from The Associated Press. I am an expert from pp-non-woven-fabric.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Frost Protection Fabric , Acrylic Shoe Display Manufacturer, Medical Non Woven Fabric,and more.
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