Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson is branching out.

For years he watched with horror as the RIAA demanded money from tens of thousands of Americans, finally getting into the ring himself when federal judge Nancy Gertner connected him to Joel Tenenbaum, a young man in need of an attorney for his file-sharing suit.

The move made waves that continue to ripple—the resources and legal minds of Harvard Law would wade into the controversy and provide a much needed counterweight to the crushing RIAA litigation machine! But critics noted that this was only a single case, and it only came after years of recording industry lawsuits. Didn't Harvard's privileged profs need to do more?

It turns out that Nesson is doing more. Though his main involvement is with the Tenebaum case—where he plans to argue that file-sharing is simply fair use—Nesson is also involved in two similar cases. In one of them, the lawyers are asking that the RIAA be forced to return all the money it has ever collected from the settlement campaign.

Thomas and English

The best known of these is the Jammie Thomas case in Minnesota, where defendant Thomas faces another trial this summer after losing the first time around. Thomas' long-time attorney, Brian Toder, withdrew from the case recently, citing unpaid legal bills of $130,000.

One of Thomas' new lawyers is K.A.D. Camara, a Harvard Law grad who took classes from Nesson. Camara sounds like an intriguing guy; he was involved in a bizarre controversy during his time at Harvard after he uploaded course notes containing the word "nig" to refer to African-Americans. He was also the youngest graduate of Harvard Law, having skipped high school altogether to earn his JD at 19.

The Nesson link here isn't accidental; as the student team defending Joel Tenenbaum noted today, "Professor Nesson has played an active role in arranging for Jammie Thomas to be represented. And yes, with support and input from Professor Nesson and and our team, Thomas’ new attorneys will undoubtedly be re-styling and filing some of the arguments we’ve put forth in Joel’s defense here in Boston."

Given the skepticism which some of Nesson's own supporters have toward his legal approach, it's not clear that this will be a good thing for Thomas, though it may be the only real chance left to her. A jury was utterly unconvinced by her claims the last time around, so challenging the underlying legal framework of statutory damages and making fair use claims might actually have a greater chance of success.

I checked in with the student legal team at Harvard, who tell me that they remain "focused on Joel" but that "Professor Nesson is lending his guidance and inspiration to the other cases." Camara will also get some PR help from the team, sure to boost what is already guaranteed to be a high-profile retrial.

Nesson is also working with Camara on a third case, this one against college student Brittany English. Camara's website, which lists the case as "pro bono," says that the lawyers "are asking the courts to declare that statutory damages like these—150,000:1—are unconstitutional and that the RIAA’s campaign to extract settlements from individuals by the threat of such unconstitutional damages is itself unlawful, enjoin the RIAA’s unlawful campaign, and order the RIAA to return the $100M+ that it obtained as a result of its unlawful campaign." (The RIAA says the $100 million number is inaccurate.)

A double whammy

In the unlikely event that Nesson, Camara, and the Harvard Law crew succeed in all of their goals, not only will file-sharing be redefined as fair use, but the recording industry will be out $100 million. Ouch.

And Nesson & Co. aren't finished yet. Debbie Rosenbaum, who handles PR for the Harvard Law students, says that the students "will need to recruit more students to work on Joel's case in the Fall, so we will hopefully be able to have enough manpower to take on even more cases then."

Back in 2007, we noticed that no prelitigation letters had yet gone to Harvard—an odd omission, but one possibly explained by the fact that "some of the best and brightest at Harvard Law School will get involved [in the cases] in a big way."

At the time, Nesson had already made his position clear, calling the RIAA out for "bully" tactics. Now that he's revved up, he seems intent on orchestrating a grand defense that goes far beyond his particular clients. Does that worry the music industry? It's certainly generating plenty of press, but if the RIAA was worried about bad press it would have stopped suing people long ago.

But despite all the activity and publicity, Nesson and crew still need to win in court. When you're arguing that the RIAA needs to return all its settlement money and that file-sharing is fair use, that's certainly not a given.