A Boston University student has been ordered to pay $675 000 (ВЈ404 000) to four record labels for downloading songs and sharing them for free via the Kazaa file-sharing network.

Joel Tenenbaum admitted in court that he had downloaded and distributed 30 songs at issue in the case.

He also said that he downloaded more than 800 songs since 1999 and that he had lied in pre-trial proceedings when he suggested that other family members of friends may have been responsible for downloading songs to his computer.

Mr Tenenbaum used a computer at his parents' home and at his college to download and distribute the digital files.

The four recording labels involved in the case are subsidiaries of Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony, reports reports BBC News.

The case is the second of its kind to go to trial.

Last month a woman in Minnesota was ordered to pay make a huge payout when she was found guilty of willful infringement of the recording industry's copyrights by posting music on Kazaa.

As previously reported on NME.COM, mother-of-four Jammie Thomas-Rasset violated the copyrights of 24 songs, and was ordered to pay recording companies $1.92 million (ВЈ1.14 million) or $80,000 (ВЈ48,000) per song.

Thirty five thousand people have been charged with copyright infringement in the US since 2004, with most settling for between $3,000 (ВЈ1,800) and $5,000 (ВЈ3,000).