• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, June 2, 2009

File-sharing defendant Joel Tenenbaum is continuing his quest to have his trial Webcast. His defense team, headed by Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, filed papers asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue.

"By restricting the right of public access to courtroom attendance, or by default, to official transcripts or news and other second-hand reports, the ruling below perpetuates physical, wealth, and other arbitrary barriers against public access that excludes all but a select few from gaining unmediated and unabridged information about the process as well as substance of American judicial proceedings," Nesson argues. "Internet broadcasting now makes it possible to lower, if not entirely eliminate, those barriers."

Nesson's right about this. The Internet has the power to transform people's ability to access the courts -- which are, after all, paid for with tax dollars. There's not a single good reason why Webcasts shouldn't be allowed.

Late last year, trial judge Nancy Gertner in Boston authorized a Webcast of proceedings in the case, a copyright infringement lawsuit by the Recording Industry Association of Amreica against Tenenbaum. The RIAA then appealed to the First Circuit, which ruled that Gertner shouldn't have okayed the Internet broadcast because local rules prohibit televising proceedings.

The First Circuit stressed that it was only enforcing its own longstanding rules against cameras in the courtroom. But it's time for courts to revisit those rules, which are both arbitrary and hostile to media.

Currently, anyone who can attend a trial in person and later render a word-for-word account of what happened in court. So why shouldn't actual voice recordings be allowed? Courtroom artists can sketch witnesses, lawyers and other observers. Why should photos be off limits?

And in this case there's the added irony that the Recording Industry Association of America is being so camera-shy, when the group repeatedly says it sues individuals like Tenenbaum in hopes of educating the public that file-sharing violates copyright. Wouldn't broadcasting the proceedings serve that goal while also furthering Tenenbaum's right to a public trial?