Supporters of Joel Tenenbaum, the Boston University student who was found guilty of breaking copyright laws and ordered to pay $675,000 in compensation, have begun to donate towards the repayment.

With Friday’s guilty verdict, Mr Tenenbaum found himself with a debt to pay to four music labels. Charged $22,500 for each of 30 specific songs, the news of his conviction quickly spread through social networking sites such as Twitter and over the weekend approximately $2000 was donated.

However, posting to his blog Mr Tenenbaum said “I ask no one to help me. And I ask for no one to cover what I signed up for. I shared music. I was the one who wanted a say in court. This lawsuit was against me. This is my verdict.” He added that he would pass any donations to his legal team after many individuals had worked for free. “We don’t want the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to be paid when I can’t afford to do it, and this money could be more valuable elsewhere. From the money raised already, I would like to reimburse my legal team for the money they’ve spent out of their own pockets.”

He explained that using Kazaa and Napster was like having “this giant library in front of you” and being questioned by his own lawyers said “I used the computer. I uploaded, I downloaded music.”

A recent change in procedure means that music companies will now try and settle out of court. However, those that have already been filed will inevitably go to trial. Boston Globe’s Kevin Cullen said that that student had “got off easy” after the first case of its kind saw a Minneapolis resident ordered to pay $1.92m after sharing 24 songs.

Tagged as: Copyright, Joel Tenenbaum, Twitter