The Paper Trail

Illegal Downloading Costs Grad Student $675,000

August 5, 2009 RSS Feed Print

A Boston University graduate student must pay $675,000 to four music companies for illegally downloading and distributing more than two dozen songs, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

The federal jury's orders were made public Friday, just one day after the student, Joel Tenenbaum, admitted to the illegal downloading. But things could have been a lot worse for Tenenbaum: The jury could have forced the 25-year-old physics student to pay upwards of $4 million. In a June lawsuit, a woman was ordered to pay nearly $2 million for downloading 24 songs.

"I'm thankful that it wasn't much bigger, that it wasn't millions," Tenenbaum said, adding that he plans to appeal the decision but will file for bankruptcy protection if the order stands.

In a written statement, the Recording Industry Association of America (the organization that sued Tenenbaum) said it was happy with the trial's outcome. "We appreciate that Mr. Tenenbaum finally acknowledged that artists and music companies deserve to be paid for their work. We only wish he had done so sooner rather than lie about his illegal behavior."

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Considering the hundreds of thousands of people that have been sued is the following situation fair.

A couple of years ago a NC police officer who was RECORDED discussing downloading for free. The officer named the name Kazaa which has appeared in numerous lawsuits and talked about how the songs were arranged in groups and you choose the songs and just click and get them. He said it was the thing to do everybody was doing it. He bet his daughters had downloaded a THOUSAND SONGS on his computer. He said he had to get a new computer his old one FILLED UP WITH MEMORY. He laughed and said he hoped the federal government did not come in and investigate him.

Shortly after this conversation we began reading the news articles people were being sued by RIAA and the FBI. They were calling piracy a crime of stealing and calling these people thieves. The RIAA and the FBI on their websites encourage people to report piracy. The FBI Anti Piracy Warning says they investigate. At that time we reported the officer's conversation as well as his name to the RIAA and the FBI. It was ignored. A few months ago we were still reading news article people still being sued. Three of these cases that stood out were Joel Tennenbaum, Jammie Thomas and Whitney Harper all having to pay outrageous monetary amounts. Now feeling ignoring the officer's conversation was unfair we began reporting the conversation to the RIAA the FBI the PD and several other anti piracy organizations along with the officer’s name asking why this was not investigated. Again it continues to be ignored. If piracy is a crime as the FBI the RIAA and others proclaim why was this conversation ignored. Considering piracy is being called a crime and the thousands of people that have been sued shouldn't this conversation be investigated to see where the THOUSAND SONGS this officer talks about came from, who the everybody is that is doing this police officer's conversation be investigated to see where the THOUSAND SONGS he talks about came from, who the everybody is that is doing it, and if he or his daughters may have committed what they are calling a crime. Ignoring this conversation seems to be an injustice to all the people that have been sued as well as to us as a citizen reporting it and it being ignored. How can they sue some and ignore a high ranking police officer discussing downloading music in this way. I feel this is wrong and don’t understand how this is allowed.

anonymous of NC 8:39PM April 04, 2011

i like turltes

zack of NM 12:13PM March 10, 2011

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tyler of AK 3:54PM March 01, 2011

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