A federal jury on Friday ordered a Boston University graduate student who admitted illegally downloading and sharing music online to pay $675,000 to four record labels. Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, Rhode Island, admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels. Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful. The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum's case was $4.5 million. Jurors ordered Tenenbaum to pay $22,500 for each incident of copyright infringement, effectively finding that his actions were willful. The attorney for the 25-year-old student had asked the jury earlier Friday to “send a message” to the music industry by awarding only minimal damages. Tenenbaum said he was thankful that the case wasn't in the millions and contrasted the significance of his fine with the maximum. “That to me sends a message of ‘We considered your side with some legitimacy,”' he said. Tenenbaum's lawyer, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, said the jury's verdict was not fair. He said he plans to appeal the decision because he was not allowed to argue a case based on fair use. The case is only America's second music downloading case against an individual to go to trial. Last month, a federal jury in Minneapolis ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, must pay $1.92 million, or $80,000 on each of the 24 song download breaches. Tenenbaum said he downloaded and shared hundreds of songs by Nirvana, Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins and other artists. The music industry has typically offered to settle such cases for about $5,000, though it has said that it stopped filing such lawsuits last August and is instead working with Internet service providers to fight the worst offenders.
