About a year ago,
we wrote about the final chapter in the copyright saga of Joel Tenenbaum, the Boston University
student who was found liable for copyright infringement by a
District of Massachusetts jury, based on his admitted sharing of
about 30 songs via online peer-to-peer networks. Because the jury
found that his infringement was willful, it awarded the plaintiffs
a whopping $675,000 in statutory damages, or about $22,500 for each
violation. By contrast, the retail value of the music
Tenenbaum shared was reportedly about $450.
Tenenbaum's lawyers, and even trial judge Nancy Gertner, tried to reduce
the award, on due process grounds, to an amount that they
thought would more proportionately reflect the harm Tenenbaum's
infringement caused. However, the First Circuit rejected these arguments and
held that, because the Copyright Act's statutory damages provision clearly allows for
awards of up to $150,000 for each willful violation, there was no
basis for
