The master distiller
This past April, right before exams, most Harvard Law School (HLS) students were camped in the library studying legal precedents. Meanwhile, Jason Harrow was appearing before packed crowds in Boston’s 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, making a compelling case to overturn one. Five months after he argued his team to victory at HLS’s Ames Moot Court Competition, Harrow found himself giving another oral argument in federal court — and this time, the stakes were real. Harrow’s work will help decide the fate of Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University graduate student fined $675,000 for illegally downloading and distributing 30 songs, and possibly the future of copyright law. “We just don’t think that this incredible penalty was ever intended for a college kid sharing music like everyone else,” said Harrow, who graduates this week. “Did Congress really think that when they passed [a digital copyright law in 1998] they were subjecting someone like...