The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled this afternoon that the district court hearing the Capitol Records Inc. v. Alaujan case lacked authority under the federal rules to order gavel-to-gavel webcasting of the trial. The case involves, among other things, the constitutionality of very large federal statutory damages for willful copyright infringement.
From Judge Bruce Selya's opinion:
We are mindful that good arguments can be made for and against the webcasting of civil cases. We are also mindful that emerging technologies eventually may change the way in which information — including information about court cases — historically has been imparted. Yet, this is not a case about free speech writ large, nor about the guaranty of a fair trial, nor about any cognizable constitutional right of public access to the courts. Our purview here is much more confined: this is a society dedicated to the rule of law; and if a controlling rule, properly interpreted, closes federal courtrooms in Massachusetts to webcasting and other forms of broadcasting (whether over the air or via the Internet), we are bound to enforce that rule. In the last analysis, this boils down to a case about the governance of the federal courts.
We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above, we conclude that the district court's order of January 14, 2009, which purposed to permit webcasting of a motions hearing in a civil case, was based on a palpably incorrect interpretation of D. Mass. R. 83.3. Consequently, we exercise our advisory mandamus authority, prohibit enforcement of the challenged order, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
The lower court's ruling in Capitol Records Inc. v. Alaujan, 593 F. Supp.2d 319 (D. Mass. 2009), is available here.
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