New York, Aug 1 (DPA) A federal jury in Boston Friday ordered a graduate student to pay $22,500 per song to four record labels, who sued him for illegally downloading and sharing music.

Joel Tenenbaum, 25, was found to have illegally downloaded 30 songs and ordered to pay a total of $675,000 to the plaintiffs.

He was only the second person in the US to have been sued for downloading music over the Internet.

In the previous case, a Minnesota jury ordered Jammie Thomas-Rasset to pay $80,000 for infringing 24 songs, totalling $1.92 million.

Lawyers for the record companies had argued that Tenenbaum was a 'hardcore and habitual infringer' who had started downloading music in 1999 and continued even after he was sued.