Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum walked into a Boston courtroom on July 27. He walked out owing $675, 000 to five major record companies.

Tenenbaum, 25, was charged with copyright infringement and the use of peer-to-peer networking. The jury awarded the Recording Industry Association of America $675,000 in statutory damages, $22,500 for each of the 30 songs he downloaded.

The RIAA then filed an injunction against Tenenbaum Sept. 1, saying the BU student promoted file-sharing programs on his Twitter page.

The tweet was ‘a clear example of him thumbing his nose at the verdict and not taking us seriously,’ Cara Duckworth, the RIAA’s vice president for communications, said in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

If accepted, the injunction will prevent Tenenbaum, or his supporters, from making any sort of reference to the case.

Tenenbaum’s first encounter with the RIAA was on Aug. 10, 2004 when it discovered more than 800 files that Tenenbaum downloaded. Five record companies sent him a letter, claiming copyright infringement, and ordered him to pay $5,250.

The companies included Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Bros. Records Inc., Atlantic Recording Corporation, Arista Records LLC and UMG Recordings, Inc.

Tenenbaum sent $500 in response to the letter. His payment was denied because the record companies wanted the full amount, according to the trial account Tenenbaum kept on his personal blog.

Because the company did not follow up with him, Tenenbaum felt the matter was over. In August 2007, a lawsuit was filed against him.

Tenenbaum is one of many college students to face such charges.

In March 2007, the RIAA demanded 37 Syracuse University students pay $3,000 in order to avoid such lawsuits, The Daily Orange reported. Seven of the students did not pay their dues within the 20-day deadline, and lawsuits were filed against them. At the time, SU was ranked No. 12 out of 25 universities having the most warnings from the RIAA.

The RIAA states on their Web site that they ‘have worked to forge collaborative relationships with campus administrators, and we regard our efforts with the university community as a partnership…We believe that university leaders have a responsibility to acknowledge campus piracy.’

SU’s Information and Technology Services combats piracy on campus through a three-strike system. First, ITS will tell a student to stop pirating music. If the student continues, ITS confronts the student in a counseling session. If a student doesn’t stop illegally downloading after the session, they must meet with the Office of Judicial Affairs.

Chris Sedore, vice president and chief information officer of ITS, said it is still the university’s responsibility to prevent illegal downloading on campus, even though the RIAA stopped filing lawsuits in December 2008.

‘We want our students to understand that said downloading or distributing copyrighted content without permission is against the law and may result in civil damages or, more rarely, criminal prosecution,’ Sedore said.

Tenenbaum is the second individual to stand trial for copyright infringement since the RIAA ended these types of lawsuits in December 2008. The first was Jammie Thomas-Rasset, who must pay a total of $1.92 million for 24 songs to the RIAA.

There are 133 other people who are in the same position as Tenenbaum and Thomas-Rasset, according to Joel Fights Back – a Web site created by a group of Charles Nesson’s students at Harvard Law School (Nesson was Tenenbaum’s attorney).

Damages for infringement range from $750 to $30,000 per song if the defendant infringes willfully, according to copyright law. Damages can reach as high as $150,000 per song for a total of $4.5 million in damages.

Beyond the Hill is a feature in The Daily Orange which highlights national collegiate news that is of interest to Syracuse University students.

lgleveil@syr.edu

Published on September 7, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Contact Laurence: lgleveil@syr.edu | @lgleveille