Boston University grad student, Joel Tenenbaum is being sued for $1,000,000 for downloading seven songs which the RIAA wants $160,000 per song for. Luckly for Tenenbaum, Harvard Law School has something called the CyberOne Program which has taken steps to countersue in an attempt to stop the abuse of the legal system by the RIAA.

According to the CyberOne website, found here, this case is being done not for the purpose of recovering compensation for actual damage caused by Joel’s individual action, nor for the primary purpose of deterring him from further copyright infringement, but for the ulterior purpose of creating an urban legend so frightening to children using computers, and so frightening to parents and teachers of students using computers, that they will somehow reverse the tide of the digital future.

Joel seeks damages to compensate for the actual damage RIAA has done to him and his family. He claims the right to trial by jury including the right to offer proof and argument to the jury about what is right and what is wrong on both sides of this case. In the face of the onslaught the plaintiffs have imposed and are continuing to impose upon him he seeks justice from both judge and jury. At core his defenses and counterclaim raise a profoundly conceptual question: Is the law just the grind of a statutory machine to be carried out by judge and jury as cogs in the machine, or do judge and jury claim the right and duty and power of constitution and conscience to do justice.

The below is excerpted from their defense of their counterclaim against the RIAA and the music companies that back it, and gives a pretty good idea of the stakes involved, and what Joel is up against

Other schools are also helping thoes students that are in trouble, earlier we reported the Internet and Intellectual Property Justice Project by the University of San Francisco School Of Law