Filesharers have yet another defendant for whom to rally. Boston University graduate student Joel Tenenbaum is one of the latest people faced with a filesharing lawsuit filed by the RIAA (oddly enough after the organization claimed it was ceasing its lawsuits). He's pursuing his case pro se, which basically means sans professional legal counsel -- his advising team essentially consists of a group of students under the guidance of Harvard professor Charles Nesson and the backing of a whole heaping of Internet awareness campaigning via Twitter, Facebook, and the group's own website, Joel Fights Back.
Tenenbaum was handed a bit of a setback in the online awareness area when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit sided with the RIAA and unanimously rejected U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner's decision to allow the trial to be narrowcast on the internet. Presumably, the RIAA wants to keep such a trial under wraps, as it has previously received mostly negative coverage for its efforts to sue music fans, but what is little known is that the RIAA also seriously objects to the broadcasting of any of its lawsuits because of its lawyers' uncanny resemblance to the Skeksis in The Dark Crystal.
The First Circuit's decision has wider-ranging repercussions than just this trial -- had it decided the opposite, the panel would have given Massachusetts District Court Judges the discretion to webcast court proceedings. Tenenbaum and his supporters say they will continue to explore every legal option that is available for his defense.
