Posted on 08/01/2009 5:01:34 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
New York, NY (AHN) - A judge has ordered a graduate student to pay a total of $675,000 (404,000 pounds) after he was found guilty of illegally downloading songs from a shared music Web site.
Joel Tenenbaum, the 25-year-old Boston University student, has pleaded guilty of the charges of downloading and distributing 30 songs.
He will be paying $22,500 per song to four record labels for willfully infringing on the copyright of the songs by bands, including Green Day, Incubus, Nirvana and Aerosmith.
The U.S. District Court jury could have ordered him to pay a maximum of $4.5 million in the case.
"We are grateful for the jury's service and their recognition of the impact of illegal downloading on the music community," a statement from the Recording Industry Association of America said yesterday.
"We appreciate that Tenenbaum finally acknowledged that artists and music companies deserve to be paid for their work. From the beginning, that's what this case has been about. We only wish he had done so sooner rather than lie about his illegal behavior," it added.
The recording companies are entitled for fines of up to $750 to $30,000 per infringement under the U.S. copyright law.
It is the second such case to go to trial in the U.S.
In July, a woman in Minneapolis was ordered to pay $1.92 million. Jammie Thomas-Rasse was fined $80,000 per song for copyright infringement for sharing 24 songs.
I can understand the Aerosmtih, but PUH-leeze! Nirvana? Aren't we ALL sick to death of them by now? ;)
All are available in the 99-cent bin at your local record store. Dummy!
I hope you don’t mind if I sell your house and keep the profits.
A 23K fine per crummy song?! What idiots passed this law... Oh wait. That’s right. The same idiots who are planning to hijack our healthcare.
I copy all of my music and movies from the library. ;)
He can scream racism and see if that would get the Pres__dent involved....
I have always wondered why libraries have copiers for copying books.
Do you have a girl friend can I borrow her for a few minutes, if she not to ugly I’ll have her back next month, have some friend I owe a gambling debt.
“...$22,500 per song to four record labels...”
Considerably more than the labels would have made from legitimate sales. Sounds like crime does pay, just not to the criminal.
To make copies of selective pages, perhaps?
This is absurd. Hopefully he will prevail on appeal.
Besides...we'll all be getting a Free Government Ham in the mail any day now from 0bama. Right? ;)
I don’t do any of that stuff. Really. I was just being a smart-alek.
I’m pleasantly surprised when I turn on my computer each day and it manages to get me to FR, LOL!
I can barely dial my cellphone. I had to have my KID put in the phone numbers of the THREE people I might need to call someday. ;)
***I hope you dont mind if I sell your house and keep the profits.***
Did you pay the builder residuals?
You cannot get blood out of a turnip.
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