Appeals Court Upholds $675,000 Fine Against Ex-Student for Sharing Music

A federal appeals court has upheld a jury’s 2009 decision to fine a former Boston University graduate student $675,000 for downloading and sharing music on an unlicensed file-sharing network.

The former student, Joel Tenenbaum, had appealed a federal judge’s decision last summer to uphold the fine in the long-running court case, but a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the judge’s ruling in a decision handed down on Tuesday. Judge Sandra L. Lynch wrote that the evidence of Mr. Tenenbaum’s copyright infringement “easily justifies the conclusion that his conduct was egregious.”

Last year the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Mr. Tenenbaum’s appeal in the case.