Music sharer to pay 22,500 dollars per song for illegal downloads

Jul 31, 2009, 23:08 GMT

New York - A federal jury in Boston on Friday ordered a graduate student to pay 22,500 dollars per song to four record labels, who sued him for illegally downloading and sharing music.

Joel Tenenbaum, 25, was found to have illegally downloaded 30 songs and ordered to pay a total of 675,000 dollars to the plaintiffs.

He was only the second person in the United States to have been sued for downloading music over the internet.

In the previous case, a Minnesota jury ordered Jammie Thomas- Rasset to pay 80,000 dollars for infringing 24 songs, totaling 1.92 million dollars.

Lawyers for the record companies had argued that Tenenbaum was a 'hardcore and habitual infringer' who had started downloading music in 1999 and continued even after he was sued.

During the trial, Tenenbaum admitted under oath that he used KaZaA, LimeWire and other peer-to-peer software to download and distribute music to others.

The Recording Industry Association of America, which has taken the lead against file sharing systems, welcomed the verdict. 'We are grateful for the jury's recognition of the impact of illegal downloading on the music community,' the association said in a statement.

'We appreciate that Mr 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.'