Media organizations and public interest groups Thursday filed "friend of the court" briefs in the Joel Tenenbaum file-swapping case, supporting a judge's earlier decision to allow some video from the case to be streamed live over the Internet.

Tenenbaum, a Boston University graduate student, is represented by Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson and a group of law students. Nesson has pushed for the entire trial to be streamed online, though Judge Nancy Gertner initially agreed only to broadcast a single hearing. The feed would come from cameras already installed in the courtroom and would be available to anyone from the Harvard's Berkman Center. (Other sites would also be free to host the stream.)

The RIAA objected to the plan on numerous grounds, including that such a stream would prejudice potential jurors, benefit the defendant and not the plaintiff, and allow various journalists, bloggers, and Internet mashup artists to make the group look bad. It appealed to the First Circuit, which is currently considering the issue.

Two outside groups weighed in on the issue yesterday, both in favor of allowing the Internet video. The first group included the Associated Press, Gannett, Hearst, the New York Times, NBC Universal, NPR, and other news outlets. Their combined brief made the basic points that the recording industry has generally sought publicity for such cases, and that the way to prevent bias and distortion in the media is by transparency, not control.

"Petitioners’ complaint that the order has already 'provoked a rash of publicity' for the Berkman Center website, appears more than slightly disingenuous given that Petitioners themselves have repeatedly sought out publicity for this and hundreds of similar cases," says the group's brief.

And the "further objection that providing Internet access will allow 'editing and manipulation' of the recording by journalists is a true red-herring," it continues. Journalist can already edit court transcripts, or can provide a one-sided portrayal of a case based on their own notes. "If the Petitioners’ argument carried any weight, it would logically require courts to exclude reporters and bloggers from every judicial proceeding, lest subsequent reports include 'statements . . . taken out of context.'"

In the view of the news organizations, the easiest way to prevent distortions is simply to open the proceedings even more. Rather than forcing interested readers to reconstruct the case from a journalist's accounts, provide an easy way for them to watch the trial itself. The video would also give the RIAA an easy way to rebut inaccurate portrayals of the trial.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also weighed in on a joint brief with Free Press, Internet Archive, Public.Resource.Org, and even one-time McCain IP lawyer Ben Sheffner. Despite the differing views that the parties take on the overall RIAA litigation, they agree that opening the case up to public scrutiny is a good thing. Internet Archive and Public.Resource.Org have also agreed to host the video in a bid to allay RIAA fears about Berkman Center bias.

Although the RIAA insists that the video would benefit Tenenbaum and harm the music industry, the brief argues that the opposite might well be true. "Yet especially given the Petitioners' vocal public media strategy in support of the cases, it is difficult to see why members of the general public would be more likely to agree with the defendants than with the plaintiffs in this case if they see an actual hearing for themselves."

The First Circuit is expected to rule on the issue soon.

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