Joel Tenenbaum, a 25 year old grad student at Boston University, has been told to pay damages of $675,000 to four record companies for sharing music on the internet. During the case, Tenenbaum was found guilty of downloading / sharing 22 songs via Kazaa in 2004. That's a sizable $22,500 for each illegally shared track.
During the trial Tenenbaum told the court that he downloaded more than 800 songs over the last 10 years. A RIAA spokesman told reporters that the $675K in damages will the invested in "ongoing education and anti-piracy programs". This decision comes just two months after a 32 year old single mother was ordered to pay the record companies $1.92 million for sharing 24 songs on the internet via Kazaa.
