Judge Grants RIAA Review of Internet Broadcast of File-Sharing Trial

Agrees to review “how” the recording will be made and distributed, and not “whether” the hearing can be recorded

Late last week District Court Judge Nancy Gertner, the judge hearing the case, decided to authorize Courtroom View Network (CVN) to broadcast the trial of accused file-sharer Joel Tenenbaum, whom the RIAA alleges “made available” 7 songs in KaZaA’s shared folder when he was 17 years old. 

Nevermind the fact that a number of judges and copyright law professors have argued that simply placing music in KaZaA’s “shared folder” does not by itself constitute copyright infringement.

The RIAA quickly filed a petition to prohibit its broadcast, objecting to the fact that the trial would be streamed by the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society website, which was founded by Charles Nesson, who’s representing Tenenbaum in the case, since the site is “specifically designed to promote Defendant’s interests in this case.”

The RIAA also oddly argued that broadcasting a single trial “would not put the spotlight on the courts’ decisions in these cases nationwide or even the single decision in this case. Instead it would likely serve to highlight selectively the arguments of a single counsel in a limited part of a single case.”

Judge Gertner has now decided grant a motion to stay the trial until February 24th so the court can address some of the RIAA’s concerns.

She does point out that the RIAA’s concerns about the Berkman Center being the sole broadcaster of the trial are unfounded. Not only does the Berkman Center have to pay for access to CVN’s coverage, but the court has ordered that it can “…host the video recording so long as it was not edited and provided gavel-to-gavel coverage.

“The Order, however, did not limit the availability of the recording to the Berkman Center’s website,” Judge Gertner continues. “The Plaintiffs are also free to subscribe to the CVN recording and to make it available to the public at a website of their choosing, subject to the same conditions.”

I’m sure the RIAA is hesitant to be made a fool on its own website.

“If there are further issues with respect to the way in which the Berkman Center presents the video recording, those concerns can surely be addressed,” she continues. “They do not go to the question of ‘whether’ a recording of this hearing should be made available to the public, but ‘how.’”

So basically the RIAA is a creating a big stink over nothing, which is an exasperatingly familiar trend with its “brain trust” of a legal team.

If you recall, Professor Nesson posted the RIAA’s idiotic e-mails requesting an inventory of any burned CD-Rs that Joel may have left at his parents house before departing for college.

As much as the RIAA claims to be doing things differently from now on it really seems to be bent on doing more of the same.

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