November 19th, 2008
Internet stars come out for RIAA trial
In RIAA lawsuit news, the Tennenbaum case – in which uber-lawyer Charles Nesson now represents the defendant – is taking an Internet star turn. Ray Beckerman reports that in a pretrial memo (PDF), Nesson discloses that he intends to call some of the biggest legal names in digital rights.
Nesson says he will call:
- Grateful Dead lyricist and EFF founder John Perry Barlow (above) “to testify about the state of the Plaintiffs’ industry and explain the factors and motivations that have driven Plaintiffs to abuse federal process.”
- Former EFF attorney Wendy Seltzer, currently at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, to “describe factual background regarding the tactics of Plaintiffs that rise to the level of abuse.”
- Lawrence Lessig “to testify to the damage to the music industry caused by file sharing and the damage to free culture done by abusive articulation and enforcement of copyright.”
- Jonathan Zittrain, also of Berkman, to “discuss the place peer-to-peer file sharing has in the Internet as a legitimate and beneficial technology.”
I don’t know, I love those guys. But does this sound like a trial is being turned into a Harvard seminar? I think the judge may have a problem with the relevance of long-winded testimony about the societal implications of P2P. Just a thought.
