In some ways, copyright holders have gained legal power over the past few years. Major courtroom battles over copyright have been fought in recent years over Napster and other music sharing and video sharing programs, and previous courts have all ruled in favor of the copyright holders.

“There has been a lot of ferment recently about the issue of copyright,” Hansen said.

In Edelman’s case, the court granted a request by N2H2 to prevent disclosure of confidential information in open court but later unsealed the testimony, ruling that it did not warrant trade secret protection.

“We do intend to defend our intellectual property rights,” said Christopher Burt, a spokesperson for the Seattle-based private company N2H2, which sells software to many state and local governments for use in libraries and schools.

Burt declined to comment further, saying that N2H2 lawyers are “still reviewing the case.”

Edelman’s previous research also includes the use of Internet blocking software by the governments of China, Saudi Arabia and countries in the former Soviet Union. This background investigating Internet censorship could help Edelman gain sympathy about his efforts to examine filtering software in the U.S., Hansen said.

“There’s something awfully sympathetic about that context and that we ought to at least be able to see what the government has mandated be censored,” Hansen said.

—Staff writer Stephanie M. Skier can be reached at skier@fas.harvard.edu.