Federal Judge OKs Live Internet Coverage of Illegal Downloading Hearing
A federal judge in Boston who has testified before a House committee on the merits of cameras in federal courtrooms has agreed to allow a live Internet broadcast of a hearing in an illegal downloading suit.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said she is not bound by a 1996 recommendation of the U.S. Judicial Conference supporting a ban on cameras in federal courtrooms, the Boston Globe reports. And she says she is not the first federal judge to allow cameras in the courtroom.
Gertner writes that none of the appellate judicial councils have adopted the recommended camera ban; indeed, appeals courts in at least two circuits have allowed camera coverage of some proceedings, according to the Boston Globe account. And several federal trial judges in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, acting under local rules, have allowed Court TV to broadcast some hearings in civil cases, she says.
Gertner approved the webcam in response to a request by Harvard law professor Charles Nesson. Lawyers for the Recording Industry Association of America, which is suing a Boston University grad student for illegal music downloads, opposed the request. They claim Nesson’s motive was to influence the proceedings and “increase the defendant’s and his counsel’s notoriety,” the story says.
Gertner acknowledges that the proceeding will reach more young people as a result of her order. “In many ways, this case is about the so-called Internet generation, the generation that has grown up with computer technology in general and the Internet in particular, as commonplace,” Gertner writes. “It is reportedly a generation that does not read newspapers or watch the evening news, but gets its information largely, if not almost exclusively, over the Internet.”
Gertner said she will rule on additional requests for camera broadcasts as the case proceeds. The RIAA is pursuing the suit despite an announcement that it will stop suing consumers over illegal music downloads.
