BOSTON -- A Boston University graduate student says he's looking forward to possibly being a part of legal history, but he has to get by the Recording Industry of America first.

The RIAA will argue Wednesday against U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner’s decision to allow webcasting during the trial of BU student Joel Tenenbaum, 25, who is accused of sharing copyrighted music online. The group has said that allowing a webcast would threaten its ability to get a fair trial in the case.

Tenenbaum, a physics student who is being sued by the RIAA for more than $1 million for allegedly downloading and sharing seven songs he gleaned from filesharing Web site Kazaa, said there is little reason to keep the trial from being webcast and he thinks the public ought to be able to hear about a case that could potentially affect many people.

“It’s not an attempt to gain an upper hand in the courtroom,” he said. “It’s just an effort to give people a view into the whole process.”

The webcasting of Tenenbaum’s trial would be the first online streaming of oral arguments in a federal court in Massachusetts.

Other media, including The Associated Press, have filed an amicus brief in favor of allowing the courtroom webcast. The group includes the Courtroom View Network and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Charles Nesson, Tenenbaum's lawyer and a Harvard Law professor.

Nesson said he does not believe a webcast would influence the trial in a negative way because there would not be any interpretation and little potential for bias.

“With the Net, you don’t have an intermediary, you are able to relate to it,” he said.

When Gertner hears oral arguments Wednesday in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Courtroom View Network will be allowed to take part in the arguments, Tenenbaum said.

Tenenbaum said his court case could set a precedent concerning courtroom media

“I think this is historical in terms of webcasting,” he said. “I think this is going to show that this can be done in a useful way.”