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The file-sharing retrial of Jammie Thomas-Rasset began at 9am Monday morning on the 15th floor of the gleaming Minnesota District Court. The first rows in the gallery were reserved for the press “and bloggers”—this is a court aware of the public interest in this case, as evidenced by a comment from Judge Michael J. Davis. “Even though we’re out in provincial Minnesota,” he told the out-of-state lawyers on both sides, “people are going online” to view case materials, and he wanted even banal housekeeping motions filed electronically for that reason.

The majesty of the law was present in the polished wood and flat panel TVs of the courtroom, but the retrial itself began without much in the way of “majestic” proceedings. First up was the record labels. Attorney Matt Oppenheim—who might well work a side gig as a Rick Warren body double—confirmed to the court what we learned from the RIAA last week: the recording industry did in fact manage to obtain “certified” copies of its “true and correct” copyright registration forms from the Copyright Office in Washington.

Or, as Oppenheim put it, “Now we have them on the fancy paper the Copyright Office provides.”

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