First Circuit Decision in Sony v. Tenenbaum

Today the First Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum.  The PDF of the opinion is here and a text version is here.

As explained by EFF's post, the Court overturned a trial judge's decision to lower a damage award against a college student found liable for file sharing songs.  The trial judge had found the $675,000 damage award for 30 songs to be unconstitutional.  The appeals court held that the trial court should not have considered the constitutionality of the award before first reducing the award using a procedural device called a "remittur."  The case will go back to the trial judge for that purpose.