RIAA Lawyers Taking Top Justice Posts
By Morelli
President Obama is filling the senior ranks of the U.S. Department of Justice with the Recording Industry Association of America’s top lawyers. Donald Verrilli, the man who shut down Grokster and sued Google on the behalf of Viacom, announced Wednesday that he had been named Associate Deputy Attorney General.
CNET reports that this isn’t the fist decision to make RIAA and BSA-linked lawyers occupy important posts at the Department of Justice. US Vice-President Joe Biden is known to push the RIAA’s copyrighting agenda in Washington, so this newest appointment is no cause for surprise.
In other recording industry news, the RIAA sent a letter to congress in December, stating that they had ‘discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August.’ The letter is available online, and is now known to have been a bold-faced lie, as the RIAA has filed hundreds of lawsuits since August.
Pretty grim tidings for the music-lover, and it doesn’t help the RIAA’s reputation for bullying file-sharers. Now with added support in Washington, all we can do is wait to see what kind of new hegemony will be implemented in the U.S. for prosecuting copyright infringers.
Which will it be: severe or merciful rules for file-sharing?
Photo via gizmodo.com
Source: Slashdot
Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:01PM
[...] a false promise. As if that weren’t intimidating enough, now the top RIAA lawyers are occupying the U.S. Department of Justice, undoubtedly to promote their anti-piracy agenda in [...]