Do you illegally download?
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When the phone rang in the dorm room of Brittany
Kruger, a first-year student at Northern Michigan
University, she had no idea that the Constitution of the
United States was about to crash into her life. Kruger’s
dean was on the line. The dean informed Kruger that
the nation’s record companies had charged her with
copyright infringement for having downloaded Guns N'
Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free
Bird,” and other popular songs. Because each copyright
infringement carried a $150,000 penalty, Kruger was
responsible for millions of dollars in fines. If she paid
$8,100 immediately, the record companies would settle
the claim. Kruger, who earned $4,500 working at a Dairy
Queen, called her parents.
The record companies sued Joel Tenenbaum, a
Boston University physics graduate student, for $4.5 mil-
lion. He had downloaded and shared thirty songs. Instead
of settling, Tenenbaum was among the first to seek his
day in court. In 2009 a federal jury ordered Tenenbaum to
pay $625,000; he said he would declare bankruptcy.
If the Articles of Confederation had remained the
law of the land, Kruger, Tenenbaum, and the other
40,000 people charged with illegally downloading songs
and games would have done nothing wrong. The Articles