In July, a federal jury in Boston ordered Tenenbaum to pay $US675,000 to four record labels for downloading and distributing 30 songs.

He must also destroy his downloaded songs. Personally if I'd paid over half a million dollars for 30 songs, I'd want to keep them.

Meanwhile...

Major record labels rip off 300,000 songs for compilation CDs, may owe $60 billion in damages [BoingBoing]

Jazz great Chet Baker's estate is suing the major record labels for releasing his music on Canadian CDs without paying compensation [...]. The defendants [...] have admitted that they owe at least CAD$50 million, but Baker's estate is entitled to up to CAD$60 billion.

It is alleged (and admitted) that the major record companies regularly release compilations without first getting the licensing rights for the songs on the compilations. The idea is that if the compilation does well they'll pay up.

The $60 billion figure comes from estimates of around $20,000 per song, exactly what Tenenbaum was fined for his infringement, only he didn't make any money, and never intended to.