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 million. 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
World History
