PROVIDENCE (AP) — A Rhode Island couple whose son is accused of illegally sharing songs online should not be forced to surrender their home computer for inspection because it would violate their privacy, their lawyer argued at a federal court hearing yesterday.

Joel Tenenbaum, a 25-year-old Boston University graduate student, is accused by the Recording Industry Association of America of downloading at least seven songs and making 816 music files available for distribution on the Kazaa file-sharing network through 2004.

The industry’s lawsuit against him is part of an aggressive campaign targeting people who share music online. The industry says its lost billions of dollars because of peer-to-peer networks that make it easy for Internet users to share songs online.

Record company lawyers say Tenenbaum downloaded the songs on his parents’ personal computer in Providence and they urged a federal magistrate yesterday to grant permission to copy the machine’s hard drive for proof of copyright infringement.

“The information on the computer is directly relevant and material to the underlying claims in this case,” said industry lawyer Daniel Cloherty.

But Charles Nesson, a Harvard law professor representing Arthur and Judie Tenenbaum, said the computer contains information protected by attorney-client privilege and holds other sensitive and personal material that has nothing to do with the case.

“You can hardly imagine anything more intrusive than asking anyone to disgorge a computer,” said Nesson, who is also challenging in U.S. District Court in Boston the constitutionality of a federal copyright law that the music industry has used to target song-swappers.

Nesson also argued that the computer was not the one on which the alleged downloading took place. Judie Tenenbaum has stated in an affidavit that the couple bought the computer after their son had left home, and that he had only used it only occasionally to check his e-mail.

Magistrate Judge Lincoln Almond did not immediately rule.

Joel Tenenbaum had offered to settle the case for $500 after the industry confronted him in September 2005 with allegations of illegal file-sharing. But music companies rejected that, demanding $12,000. They sued in 2007.

Judie Tenenbaum said outside court yesterday that the lawsuit has been a “horrible” and time-consuming experience.

RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said the industry group wanted to settle the case quickly but blamed Nesson for dragging it out.

“During the past several years, thousands of regular working-class folks in the music community have lost their jobs precisely because of the illegal activity involved in this case,” she said in a written statement. “While this might be an interesting academic exercise for the professor and his class, there’s been real-world consequences for those who create music.”