DeathKnell
Member
We were a tad perturbed when Obama welcomed five former RIAA attorneys into his administration. When it happened, we examined the organizations and peeps involved, and their records, at length. Conflicts of interest be damned, it signaled a distinct inclination to defend the bloated, lumbering dinosaur Major Labels and copyright hoarders and their strong-arm tactics. Don Verrilli (a.k.a. the guy that argued the RIAA’s side of RIAA v. Jammie Thomas Part I, urging the court to fine the lady $222,000 for her 24 ill-gotten songs) was a member of that splinter cell, gaining appointment to the position of Associate Deputy Attorney General (basically third in command of the Department of Justice). From there he worked his way up into the White House proper, snagging the post of Deputy White House Counsel under Bob Bauer, and now he’s gotten yet another bump up to Solicitor General. In his new position, Verrilli will represent the federal government before the U.S. Supreme Court. He’s the President’s lawyer; if the Fed has an argument to make in court, Verrilli will be the guy making that argument.
So far the Fed has not “personally†been embroiled in any of the major copyright suits going down in recent years, although at times the high court will turn to the administration for guidance. For example, when Hollywood took Cablevision to task in 2009 for offering its customers the service of “recording†any programming on its own servers for playback any time (as opposed to customers using their individual in-home DVRs or VCRs), the Supreme Court turned to the incoming Obama gang for clarification on what exactly the United States’ stance on the subject was. As it happens, Verrilli was arguing that case on behalf of Big Movie & TV. Next thing ya know, Verrilli’s actually inside the administration, and the next thing ya know after that, the administration starts voicing unprecedented support for things like $150,000-per-song penalties in infringement cases. Obviously Verrilli alone is not responsible for this rising tide; he’s just indicative of the innate gravitational forces that are.
Historically, Verrilli earned his stripes by shutting down Grokster in 2005. That was the landmark case that set the precedent that even if a company handles no copyrighted content itself, but merely makes it possible to circulate said content, that company is on the hook for infringement. It’s this argument that brought down LimeWire and other file-sharing hubs, and was used (by Verrilli) unsuccessfully in Viacom’s case against YouTube. The concern now isn’t so much for what would happen if the Fed had to argue a copyright suit itself. It’s more a matter of how the Solicitor General, sometimes referred to as “the 10th Justice,†is essentially a gatekeeper to the Supreme Court. The Court already rejects roughly 99 percent of the cases that request to be heard, although on the rare occasion that it does accept a case, 80 percent of that time it’s following the recommendation of the Solicitor General. Having a pro-RIAA knight of the copyright table in that position is not going to make it any easier for the RIAA’s victims.
Source: Crawdaddy
So far the Fed has not “personally†been embroiled in any of the major copyright suits going down in recent years, although at times the high court will turn to the administration for guidance. For example, when Hollywood took Cablevision to task in 2009 for offering its customers the service of “recording†any programming on its own servers for playback any time (as opposed to customers using their individual in-home DVRs or VCRs), the Supreme Court turned to the incoming Obama gang for clarification on what exactly the United States’ stance on the subject was. As it happens, Verrilli was arguing that case on behalf of Big Movie & TV. Next thing ya know, Verrilli’s actually inside the administration, and the next thing ya know after that, the administration starts voicing unprecedented support for things like $150,000-per-song penalties in infringement cases. Obviously Verrilli alone is not responsible for this rising tide; he’s just indicative of the innate gravitational forces that are.
Historically, Verrilli earned his stripes by shutting down Grokster in 2005. That was the landmark case that set the precedent that even if a company handles no copyrighted content itself, but merely makes it possible to circulate said content, that company is on the hook for infringement. It’s this argument that brought down LimeWire and other file-sharing hubs, and was used (by Verrilli) unsuccessfully in Viacom’s case against YouTube. The concern now isn’t so much for what would happen if the Fed had to argue a copyright suit itself. It’s more a matter of how the Solicitor General, sometimes referred to as “the 10th Justice,†is essentially a gatekeeper to the Supreme Court. The Court already rejects roughly 99 percent of the cases that request to be heard, although on the rare occasion that it does accept a case, 80 percent of that time it’s following the recommendation of the Solicitor General. Having a pro-RIAA knight of the copyright table in that position is not going to make it any easier for the RIAA’s victims.
Source: Crawdaddy