A federal judge has agreed to a novel request: streaming parts of an upcoming file-sharing trial over the Internet. Judge Nancy Gertner has granted the request of Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson and students to put the gavel-to-gavel footage on the Internet for any non-commercial use, over the RIAA's objections. But only on a one-time basis.

Joel Tenenbaum's first strategy for dealing with an RIAA settlement letter wasn't real helpful: he called them up and offered $500 instead of $3,500. His offer was rejected. When the case actually went to court, Tenenbaum tried to settle again, this time for $5,000, but by then the RIAA wanted $10,500.

Tenenbaum's next strategy has worked far better. He attracted the attention of law professor Charles Nesson and the students in his CyberOne class. The group has been a boil on the music industry's smooth skin already, launching such media-worthy initiatives as a Twitter feed about the case and a brand-new website, and now agitating for online streaming of the entire trial.





Yesterday's ruling doesn't grant that (yet, anyway), but the judge is clearly disposed towards making what happens in the court as public as possible, so long as it doesn't interfere with jury anonymity or her courtroom proceedings. To start, though, the judge has only allowed video at a January 22 hearing.

The RIAA objected to this, but the judge noted in her ruling that "their objections are curious. At previous hearings and status conferences, the Plaintiffs have represented that they initiated these lawsuits not because they believe they will identify every person illegally downloading copyrighted material. Rather, they believe that the lawsuits will deter the Defendants and the wider public from engaging in illegal file-sharing activities. Their strategy effectively relies on the publicity resulting from this litigation."



Nesson with students

Because the hearing will take place before jury selection in the case—which is scheduled to go to trial at the end of March—the RIAA countered that streaming the hearing could prejudice some jurors. The judge called this "specious" and noted that there was already a system in place to "ferret out those jurors who have followed a case, whether it be through newspapers, television, or now, the Internet."

Courtroom View Network will work with the court's IT department to stream video footage from cameras already installed in the courtroom to the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, which Nesson helped to found some years ago. Berkman will cover all costs for the streaming and the video feed acquisition, and the footage will be placed on the web for all to watch.