On January 22, 2009, the public will be able to log on to the internet and watch the motions hearing in the RIAA's lawsuit against Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum and others.

On January 14, 2009, Judge Nancy Gertner of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts granted over-the-internet coverage of the hearing in which the defendants seek to dismiss allegations that they shared copyrighted music over peer-to-peer networks.   Although the RIAA opposed the broadcast, Judge Gertner found their argument to be "curious," particularly because "they believe that the lawsuits will deter the Defendants and the wider ppublic from engaging in illegal file-sharing activities," and their strategy "effectively relies on the publicity resulting from this litigation."

Judge Gertner has declared that the coverage of the hearings will be "gavel to gavel -- streaming a complete recording of the hearing to a publicly available website -- not edited for an evening news soundbite."   For those who miss the live narrowcast, the recording of the hearing will be publicly available for all non-commercial uses via the Berkman Center's website at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/.

Sources: http://joelfightsback.com/wp-content/uploads/730.pdf http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/riaa-court-hear.html