A federal judge on Friday slashed by 90 percent the damages a jury awarded the recording industry in a lawsuit against a university student caught file-sharing. The judge declared the original $675,000 award as "unconstitutionally excessive."

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner reduced last year's verdict to $67,500, or $2,250 for each of the 30 tracks defendant Joel Tenenbaum unlawfully downloaded and shared on Kazaa. The Obama administration argued in support of the original award.

"There is no question that this reduced award is still severe, even harsh," the judge added. "It not only compensates the plaintiffs for the relatively minor harm that Tenenbaum caused them; it sends a strong message that those who exploit peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully download and distribute copyrighted works run the risk of incurring substantial damages awards" (.pdf).

The RIAA opposed Gertner's move, arguing that judges do not have the discretion to tinker with the amount of statutory damages a jury awards in copyright infringement cases. The Copyright Act leaves to a jury's discretion a damage award from $750 to $150,000.

“With this decision, the court has substituted its judgment for that of 10 jurors as well as Congress," the RIAA, which vowed an appeal, said in a statement.

The RIAA has sued thousands of individuals for file sharing the past five years. Most defendants have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. Only two cases have gone to trial, and now in both, monstrous jury verdicts were reduced by the presiding judges for the same reasons.

The significance of Friday's decision appears to be minimal in the music-sharing context. The RIAA has abandoned its litigation campaign and instead is working with internet service providers to warn file sharers or kick them off the internet if they repeatedly engage in online copyright infringement.

But where the RIAA litigation campaign left off, independent movie makers have picked up. They have just begun suing thousands of BitTorrent users for downloading and sharing low-budget movies.

Tenenbaum's reduced payment of $67,500 is still sizable. And neither Tenenbaum nor Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the other defendant who went to trial, are poster children for whom Congress would likely alter copyright law.

A jury twice found Thomas-Rasset liable for file sharing 24 songs. The latest verdict, which is to be retried for a third time, demanded she pay the RIAA $1.92 million. The judge in that case also reduced the award to $2,250 a song. Tenenbaum, for his part, conceded from the stand that he was liable.

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