Supreme Court Upholds $675,000 File-Sharing Verdict

Source: Wired

The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a $675,000 file-sharing damages award that a jury levied against a college student for making 30 music tracks available on a peer-to-peer network.

Without comment, the high court, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer not participating, declined an appeal brought by former Boston college student Joel Tenenbaum. His petition (.pdf) claimed that Congress did not intend “unrestrained discretionary jury damage awards against individual citizens for copyright infringement.”

The case before the justices, the second file-sharing case the high court has rejected in the Recording Industry Association of America’s now-defunct litigation campaign against individuals, concerned a decision by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The appellate court had reversed a federal trial judge who slashed the award as “unconstitutionally excessive.” U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner of Boston reduced the verdict to $67,500, or $2,250 for each of the 30 tracks defendant Tenenbaum unlawfully downloaded and shared on Kazaa, a once popular popular file-sharing, peer-to-peer service. The 1st Circuit reinstated the award last year.


Read more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/supreme-court-file-sharing/

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Recording Industry Association of America’s believes that the Judge does not have a right to reduce the damage amounts in Copyright Act cases at all.