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Post by Michele on Aug 3, 2009 21:11:59 GMT -5
Aug 03/2009 CBC News An American student who faces a $675,000 US fine for downloading music says he won't take any donations to pay for the penalty. Joel Tenenbaum, a graduate student at Boston University, was ordered by a jury on Friday to pay that money for downloading and distributing 30 songs on the internet. Since the verdict, a campaign has sprung up on the social networking site Twitter to collect money to help Tenenbaum. So far, $2,000 US has been raised. "I ask no one to help me. And I ask for no one to cover what I signed up for," wrote the student on a blog post recently. "I was the one who wanted a say in court. This lawsuit was against me. This is my verdict." Instead, Tenenbaum says, he would like to pay his legal team who worked for free. "I would like to reimburse my legal team for the money they've spent out of pocket." The 25-year-old student says he plans to declare bankruptcy if he loses his appeal against the fine. Tenenbaum admitted in court that he had downloaded more than 800 songs since 1999. Prosecutors chose to focus on 30 tracks from artists such as Green Day and Nirvana. He could have been fined as much as a total of $4.5 million for the infractions, but a jury instead ordered him to pay $22,500 per track. Tenenbaum likened the availability of songs on the internet to a "giant library" sitting in front of him. His case is only the second of its kind to go to court. A woman in Minnesota was ordered last month to pay $1.92 million US for sharing 24 songs. www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/03/downloading-fine-donations.html?ref=rss
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