US high court declines to hear music downloading case

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A $675,000 jury verdict against a student who illegally downloaded 30 songs from the Internet was left standing by the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to take the matter up.

Joel Tenenbaum, a 28-year-old Boston University physics student, used file-sharing software to download and distribute music on sites including Napster and Kazaa.

Members of the Recording Industry Association of America, including Sony BMG, Warner Bros. Atlantic, and Arista Records and UMG, sued Tenenbaum for violating the Copyright Act.

A jury ordered him to pay damages of $22,500 per song totaling $675,000.

A U.S. District Court judge found the award constitutionally excessive and reduced the verdict to $67,500, or $2,250 per song. But on appeal, the 1st Circuit reinstated the original damages award and said that the judge should have addressed the motion for remittitur before weighing the constitutional due process rationale.

Tenenbaum asked the Supreme Court to review his case, arguing that the statute applies only to companies that profit from stealing copyrighted material, not to music fans who share content for noncommercial purposes.

Another much larger verdict for $1.9 million against downloader Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a Minnesota mom who was also sued by the recording industry for sharing 24 songs, is on appeal.