U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner of Boston has pronounced a sentence in terms of $675,000 fine to a Boston graduate student who was found guilty of illegally downloading songs off the internet and then sharing them online. Joel Tenenbaum from Boston University has been instructed to pay the fine amount of four record labels and destroy all the downloaded content. However, his file sharing services haven’t been banned. Although, the judge has warned Joel to avoid copyright violations in the future.

The record labels who sued the individual had stated that, Joel was in the process of sharing the downloaded music content via a Swedish Web site, where users can download illegal media files, especially the ones that Joel had downloaded and was sharing via the website. Even with the huge fine, it seems that both the judge and the defendant were quite on the same page, as Ms. Gertner refused to put a stop Joel’s activity on the website and also allowed his continuous criticism of the recording industry and copyright laws.

In a statement, Joel Tenenbaum said,

“She said, look, this isn’t your business, he can say whatever he wants about the issue, he has First Amendment rights.”

After all said and done, both the parties are comfortable with the decision of the federal jury that had ordered Joel to pay $675,000 in fine to four record labels and to destroy the 30 songs that he had downloaded and shared via the Swedish website. Still, Mr. Tenenbaum’s attorney, Charles Nesson, who is also a professor at the Harvard Law School has stated that, he will be raising an appeal against the verdict and will pursue for a new trial.

Via Associated Press.