Judge Experiments With Music Pirating

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson confessed in court that he downloaded several unauthorized copies of songs from an online file-sharing service--in the interests of justice, naturally.

Wilson is presiding over two copyright infringement lawsuits in Los Angeles that the entertainment industry brought against StreamCast Networks’ Morpheus, Sharman Networks’ Kazaa and Grokster, three of the most popular file-sharing systems.

At a pretrial conference, Wilson told lawyers that he’d never used a file-sharing service before, and as a music lover he wanted to see what the experience was like.

“So I tried it. It works. Got some nice music,” Wilson said, sending laughter through the courtroom. “I hope this doesn’t disqualify me.”

Known for moving cases along quickly, Wilson set a trial date of Oct. 1 and ordered that the cases, which are expected to be consolidated, be heard by a jury.

Jon Healey