A lot of us hear about the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA, mainly from the high-profile news it gets from suing people caught uploading music on peer-to-peer services (or, at least, how it used to). It's almost developed a mystique surrounding it, like it's a big bad bully working outside of law enforcement. Once it catches you, it tries to extort money from you, threatening to take you to court if it doesn't get its way. The truth is a lot more complicated than those scare-stories, so we thought you might be interested in a chance to check out the RIAA in action yourself.

One guy who's fighting back against the RIAA in court has petitioned the judge to let his defense team stream the trial live over the internet. The RIAA's legal team raised a big stink over the idea, forcing the judge to make a ruling on it. She ultimately ruled to allow it for a January 22nd hearing, holding off on ruling if it will be allowed all throughout the proceedings.

The RIAA actually ended up shooting itself in the foot, as it had argued earlier that its goal wasn't to track down and sue every last file sharer, but to make an example of a few to scare the rest straight. As the judge pointed out, what better way to get publicity than to allow the live streaming?

If you want to check out the case, and see what the RIAA's up to first-hand, it will be made available through the Courtroom View Network and Harvard's Berkman Center. Check in with them next Thursday for links to the stream.

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