Amazing as it seems, internet users worldwide will have the opportunity on Thursday to see a federal-court hearing in a music piracy lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against Boston University graduate student Joel Tenenbaum, as US District Judge Nancy Gertner authorized last week the Courtroom View Network to send a live video feed of the hearing to Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

The center will then stream the video on its Web site. However, RIAA said that the streaming could prejudice potential jurors, a claim that Gertner labeled specious. For now, the judge only allowed this week's hearing to be streamed, saying she would later decide whether to allow it in subsequent proceedings.

RIAA also says the Webcast could harm its case with the public, and that's because people might create misleading re-edits, as statements might be taken out of context, spliced together with other statements and rebroadcast as if it were an accurate transcript. On the other hand, Tenenbaum's legal team denounced RIAA's position, saying the true public interest in this case is permitting civil involvement in courtroom proceedings.

Joel Tenenbaum is facing a suit for allegedly sharing seven tracks, and he's among the more than 30,000 individuals targeted by the RIAA as part of a litigation campaign against suspected file-sharers. However, last year RIAA said it would stop suing individuals and instead work with Internet service providers in order to sanction alleged music sharers. But cases already in court, jut like this one, are continuing.

Furthermore, Tenenbaum's lawyers said on Sunday that they were working to find additional sites that would distribute the broadcast. It remains to be seen what effect will the Webcast have for RIAA and Tenenbaum.