• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 2, 2009

Alleged file-sharer Joel Tenenbaum has a new ally in his battle against the record labels: Radiohead manager Brian Message.

Tenenbaum, a grad student currently being sued for allegedly sharing seven tracks on Kazaa, intends to have Message testify that file-sharing can help the music industry, according to his lawyer, Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School.

"He is leading a wonderful group of U.K. artists who are coming out in favor of the idea of non-commercial sharing among music fans," Nesson said of Message.

"It's clear that one of the issues that's at play in the case is this idea that there's been tremendous damage done to the music business," Nesson added. "While there may have been some damage done to the CD business, the music business is going to be saved by readjusting and developing these exciting new business models that are consistent with a digital environment."

Radiohead famously released a digital version of its 2007 album, "In Rainbows," on a pay-what-you-wish basis. Not only did people pay to download the tracks, but fans also purchased hard copies -- at least 1.75 million of them, making the album more successful than the group's previous two releases. The 2003 release "Hail to the Thief" sold 990,000 copies, and 2001's "Amnesiac" sold 900,000.

Still, some other lawyers have expressed skepticism that Tenenbaum can win on a fair use defense simply because he didn't profit from the tracks. "I think it would be more convincing to argue that Joel's conduct was 'fair' as an ethical matter than to claim that it meets the legally established category of 'fair use,' " digital rights lawyer Wendy Seltzer said in an email to Nesson about the case. That email was found by intellectual property lawyer Ben Sheffner, who quoted it on his blog, Copyrights & Campaigns. Decisions about whether particular uses are "fair" tend to be very specific to the facts of the case.

Overall, the record industry has seen revenue plummet to around $10 billion from $15 billion since Napster first came on the scene 10 years ago. In an attempt to stem losses, the record labels began filing lawsuits against alleged file-sharers in 2003. The industry sued or threatened to sue more than 30,000 people until last December, when the labels announced they were going to stop the litigation campaign and instead, work with Internet service providers to sanction alleged file-sharers. But cases already in the pipeline, like the high-profile Tenenbaum case, are continuing.