28-year old Joel Tenenbaum has been found guilty of illegally downloading 31 songs from file sharing application Kazaa.
The sentence? A $675,000 fine. Nearly $22,000 per track.
U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel rejected a request from the defendant for a new jury trial, stating:
In short, there was ample evidence of willfulness and the need for deterrence based on Tenenbaum’s blatant contempt of warnings and apparent disregard for the consequences of his actions. In spite of the overwhelming
evidence from which the jury could conclude that Tenenbaum’s activities were willful, the award of $22,500 per infringement not only was at the low end of the range – only 15% of the statutory maximum – for willful infringement, but was below the statutory maximum for non-willful infringement.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to intervene in the case, levied by the RIAA against Tenenbaum, who was a Boston University student at the time.
It looks like this is getting more true everyday:
Thoughts?