Boston appeals court reinstates $675K judgment in illegal music downloading case

By Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff

A federal appeals court in Boston has reinstated a $675,000 judgment against a Boston University graduate student who admitted to downloading music from Internet file sharing sites in violation of copyright protection laws.

The First US Circuit Court of Appeals decided in the case of the recording industry’s lawsuit against Joel Tenenbaum, the first case of its kind to reach the federal appeals court level.

The appeals court rejected Tenenbaum’s claims that he did not violate copyright protection laws because he was a consumer, not someone looking to make a profit. The court also vacated a district judge’s decision to reduce the total judgment by 90 percent, to $67,500, after she found the original figure was unconstitutionally excessive.

The appeals court did not address the constitutional questions that led US District Judge Nancy Gertner to reduce the judgment to $67,500, saying instead that she should have tried to see if the Tenenbaum and the Recording Industry Association of America could come to terms on a judgment. If not, she could have held a second trial to settle the judgment award, the appeals court said.

When deciding the issue last year, Gertner did not seek the possibility of an agreement, or a remittitur, based on an assumption that the recording companies would not agree to a reduction of the award.

By skipping that process, Gertner grappled with a constitutional question on whether the judgment award was “excessive” without going through the proper process, the appeals court found.

“The abandonment of the rule instead thrust the case into a thicket of constitutional issues it was not necessary to enter,” the appeals court said in a 65-page opinion, adding that it “also led the court to address questions that had not yet been fully developed. Federal courts do not answer such hypothetical questions.”

The court ordered that another district judge (Gertner has since retired) decide whether Tenenbaum and the recording industry can come to an agreement or consider holding a hearing. The question of whether the original $675,000 award was “excessive” cannot be raised until then, the court ruled.

Tenenbaum could not be reached for comment today. His lawyer, Harvard University professor Charles Nesson, who led a team of law school students in the case, said through a spokeswoman that he could not comment on the decision.

Jennifer Pariser, senior vice president of litigation and legal affairs for the RIAA, said in a statement, “We are pleased the court agreed with us that the finding of liability was correct and that the District Court erred in finding the verdict unconstitutional.”