Petition Started to Permit Live Webcasting During Public Trials
P2pnet was the first Canadian outfit to actively get behind an American victim of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s bizarre and vicious sue ‘em all marketing campaign, targeted at their own customers.
Readers raised more than $15,000 to help Patti Santangelo.
Because the Net knows no boundaries and now another Canadian wants to help an RIAA victim — Joel Tenenbaum, the Boston physics student accused by the Big 4 of being a file sharing criminal and thief.
“This is our chance to make history by enabling the US justice system to permit live webcasting during public trials,” says Virginia Stead, OISE/University of Toronto in her online petition, support webcasting public trials.
“The US constitution guarantees the right to a public trial and the issue today is simply to refine the meaning of ‘public’ by recognizing a defendant’s right to get the news of their trial out there online as well as through newspapers and TV programming,” she says, going on »»»
A test case involvling Joel Tenenbaum, a graduate student at Boston University, has just been thrown out by the First Circuit US Court of Appeals. With enough support, we believe that we can convince this nation’s lawmakers to create legislation that guarantees a permanent place at the table for Webcast news.
Joel needs our help today and we’ll all benefit by extending public access to information that affects our lives on so many levels.
“I think transparency in the legal system is one of the most important issues facing our society,” says Alpha Newberry.
” It is clear to me that arguments against transparency in this case are spurious, serving merely to help the public relations machine of an all-too-powerful organization bringing a case against a single citizen. If they are scared of the ramifications of the proceedings, they should not have brought the case at all.”
And, “The US constitution guarantees the right to a public trial and in this day and age, ‘public’ cannot be limited to those who have the means to physically travel to the trial itself,” says an Oregon poster. “Moreover, the public’s right to public information cannot and should not be hampered by the RIAA’s self-interests.”
Says Virginia:
“I am concerned about leaving in the hands of individual judges the decision over what kind of information gets broadcast on TV and what makes it to the internet. Alternate news sources are empowering people everywhere by creating access to information where once there was none. What happens during a public trial is something that touches all of our lives and I want to protect our constitutional right to making that news public in the broadest and most accessible way that there is.”
“Let’s move quickly,” she says. “Please sign now and spread the word.”
Says the Joel Fights Back site:
“You can put out a flame, but you can’t put out a fire. Once the spark begins to catch, the wind will grow it higher.”
“Thanks to Virginia Stead, a 2009 Ed.D. Candidate, for starting a movement!”
[via p2pnet]
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