Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Harvard prof in R.I. to block RIAA access to BU kid’s PC

By Mass High Tech staff

Harvard University law professor Charles Nesson and his team of law students are hitting the Rhode Island federal court today to defend Boston University graduate student Joel Tenenbaum, and his parents, in a lawsuit brought against him by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA has filed a $1 million lawsuit against Tenenbaum over seven songs the student allegedly downloaded from the Kazaa file-sharing network in 2004.

Nesson was not allowed to legally represent 24-year-old Tenenbaum in a Rhode Island court in December. He has since secured a Rhode Island lawyer while his and the group’s pro hac vice motion filing, which would grant them exception to represent outside the jurisdiction, awaits approval.

Today’s hearing covers a subpoena for Tenenbaum’s parents, Arthur and Judi Tenenbaum, to turn over a home computer for imaging purposes to detect copyright infringement. According to a press release from the Harvard legal team, this computer did not exist in the Tenenbaum household at the time of the alleged Kazaa file downloads.