Court Of Appeals Reinstates Damages In Joel Tennenbaum File Sharing Suit

Joel Tennenbaum

In JULY 2009 (NET NEWS 7/31/2009), ALL ACCESS reported that after less than three hours of deliberation, a BOSTON federal jury fined BOSTON UNIVERSITY grad student JOEL TENENBAUM a total of $675,000 for the illegal file sharing of 30 songs over the KAZAA P2P network. 

Now, reports BLOOMBERG.COM, "A judge improperly cut the damages assessed against a teenager who downloaded and redistributed thousands of songs from the Web without paying. The U.S. Court of Appeals in BOSTON rejected U.S. District Judge NANCY GERTNER's 90% reduction of the award and directed her to reconsider whether the jury's $675,000 penalty against JOEL TENENBAUM was excessive."

"We affirm the finding of liability against TENENBAUM and in favor of plaintiffs," U.S. Circuit Chief Judge SANDRA LYNCH said in the appellate opinion. The panel "rejected TENENBAUM's arguments that the Copyright Act is unconstitutional."

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