Obama DOJ Sides With RIAA 785
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Obama Administration's Department of Justice, with former RIAA lawyers occupying the 2nd and 3rd highest positions in the department, has shown its colors, intervening on behalf of the RIAA in the case against a Boston University graduate student, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, accused of file sharing when he was 17 years old. Its oversized, 39-page brief (PDF) relies upon a United States Supreme Court decision from 1919 which upheld a statutory damages award, in a case involving overpriced railway tickets, equal to 116 times the actual damages sustained, and a 2007 Circuit Court decision which held that the 1919 decision — rather than the Supreme Court's more recent decisions involving punitive damages — was applicable to an award against a Karaoke CD distributor for 44 times the actual damages. Of course none of the cited cases dealt with the ratios sought by the RIAA: 2,100 to 425,000 times the actual damages for an MP3 file. Interestingly, the Government brief asked the Judge not to rule on the issue at this time, but to wait until after a trial. Also interestingly, although the brief sought to rebut, one by one, each argument that had been made by the defendant in his brief, it totally ignored all of the authorities and arguments that had been made by the Free Software Foundation in its brief. Commentators had been fearing that the Obama/Biden administration would be tools of the RIAA; does this filing confirm those fears?"
It's government corruption. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:If you didn't vote libertarian, you ASKED FOR T (Score:5, Informative)
Support instant runoff voting, or at least first-round/runoff voting for federal offices. Proportional representation to determine House delegations wouldn't hurt either, IMHO.
Re:Not the most pressing issue, but bad precident (Score:3, Informative)
The RIAA intervention by the DOJ would not usually get my panties in a twist, but I think it is taking us in the wrong direction. It was the greed, arrogance, and unreasonable actions by wall street executives that got us into the current financial mess. The RIAA is no different and in my humble opinion, Obama's support for their arrogance and bullying is sending a clear message that he is duplicitous. Either you are against this of behaviour or you are for it. You can't be both.
I agree that the position taken by the brief is inconsistent with the thrust of Mr. Obama's campaign promises.
Re:Libertarians have too much baggage. (Score:1, Informative)
>Swiss Libertarian party
Unless that's the actual name of an US party, please don't make the mistake of comparing European political ideologies with the same-sounding US ones.
After all, the democrats are "left" and the republicans are "right" although the democrats would have a hard time scoring anywhere near "center" (let alone left of that) among most European states.
Re:Libertarians have too much baggage. (Score:3, Informative)
What? In politics maybe, but not the libertarians [lewrockwell.com] I know [mises.org].
Private property is the solution to limited resources, and modern intellectual property is not limited in any sense.
Re:It's government corruption. (Score:2, Informative)
Most/all western democracies.
Greece, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Mexico. To name a few western democracies that are more corrupt.
Re:Third Party (Score:1, Informative)
If you drew up a list of challenges facing Obama and his administration (or McCain, Clinton, etc, had someone else been elected), the problem of the status and enforcement of copyright laws in regards to digital media wouldn't have made it onto the first two pages of a single spaced list.
You kids need a little more experience earning a living and paying attention to how politics works in this country. There are LOTS of media and interest groups vying to get their way, and many have $$$ to spend to do it.
In general, one doesn't get everything one wants, so one better learn to prioritize. How about Iraq, the economy, global warming, financial and securities regulation, clean energy and reducing dependence on imported oil, protecting the environment, health care, education, collapse of the US auto industry, insolvency of the social security system, Iranian nuclear ambitions, Israel vs. Palestinians, Mexican and Columbian drug cartels, abortion rights, warrantless surveillance, immigration, civil rights. Just speculating that a few of these goodies might be a little more consequential than the "right" of affluent college kids and twenty somethings to download all the movies and audio tracks they might ever get around to watching/listening to w/o fear of prosecution.
Just saying.
Re:I'm Confused (Score:5, Informative)
Now, I'm not a lawyer, and I confess I haven't dug through the briefs. Leaving aside the question of why the White House is involved in this at all, this line confuses me. First, if the WH's brief concedes that statutory damages are subject to excessive damage review, I don't know why they would address the FSF's argument further in that regard.
Because the authorities cited by the FSF referred to the "State Farm/Gore" test; the Government took the position that the "Williams" test, and not the "State Farm/Gore" test is applicable.
Secondly, if the administration cited SCOTUS and Circuit Court rulings, why would they need to address law review articles and District Court rulings? I'm under the impression that the higher courts trump the lower ones. I'd suggest, again with little knowledge of the matter, that the FSF failed by using weak citations. In an argument on Constitutional grounds, I have trouble seeing where the lower court rulings and journal articles should have more weight than a higher court ruling on a general case, even if the subject matter is more directly related.
Because their authority was a wildly distinguishable case that is 90 years old, and because a great deal of recent jurisprudence has emanated from the US Supreme Court on how much is too much in the punitive damages sphere, and a number of recent authorities have stated that this US Supreme Court jurisprudence is applicable to statutory damages.
Any insight into this from someone who's read the briefs and, ideally, studied some law would be appreciated. Returning to the matter of the White House's involvement at all... guk. This seems to me to be, simply, beneath the White House. There's no reason I can see why they should feel they have an official interest in the matter. This should frankly be true when it comes to any Constitutional law decision of the courts; their job is to obey the big C as the courts interpret it, not to attempt to influence this. I've long held that the executive branch should show no interest in legal - especially Constitutional - interpretation beyond enforcing, obeying, and occasionally clarifying it.
I agree; I think this was a disgraceful display.
Re:Third Party (Score:3, Informative)
Let's put out the fire in the attic before we start worrying about cleaning up the combustibles in the car barn.
The RIAA needs to be dealt with... but the only way to get that mess fixed is to replace the DMCA with workable law that fits the current and future engineering realities. Rather than attempting to apply horse and buggy law to SUVs on freeways. This cannot be done through tweaking existing laws. It is a major project.
But right at the moment, the global financial crisis is causing global distribution and production crises, and if those are not addressed immediately, then by November there will be famines, pestilence, and wars. There are only a few short weeks left to get things to the point where the American farming industry can get the loans it needs for Spring planting... and if fields end up going fallow for want of loans for plowing, seeding, and fertilizing, there will be a food shortage of global proportions. The last thing any of us would then be worried about would be revising copyright law.
Obama's Administration is required to do certain things to uphold even the bad laws, until they are changed. We can hope that their defense of DMCA is inadequate (without being blatantly illegal).
Re:Change we can believe in. (Score:0, Informative)
We all told you dumbshits that voted for him that this is what would happen. And you didn't fucking listen. You took all your wildest hopes and dreams and tied them to a person who was a completely false prophet. He was purposefully vague so that you could just assume the best.
At least with Bush, you always knew what you were getting, and got exactly what you voted for. With Obama, you voted for a lie, and you got a lie. Now you never know WTF he's going to do because he has no fucking integrity.
In 4 years, you're going to have a republican house, senate, and presidency, and it's going to be your own fucking fault.
Re:If you didn't vote libertarian, you ASKED FOR T (Score:5, Informative)
To take a lesson from history, the American Progressive Party never won a presidential election, but took enough votes from the Rep/Dem parties that both parties began to adopt elements of the Progressive platform.
Re:Was this the change we were promised? (Score:3, Informative)
That's a change in tax policy, not a change in economic system. Get a clue.
I don't even think you can name a real economist who thinks that's happening, much less one who thinks it's happening and thinks it's a problem.
The government's job to do the will of the people within the limited range of powers granted to it in the Constitution. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor isn't one of those powers. The government doesn't just get free reign to do what ever it wants. It has to play by the rules.
Nice straw man. Back in real life, most "rich" people start off "poor", which according to you isn't even possible. Real life directly contradicts your claims - I'll leave it to you to figure out what that means.
Re:Change we can believe in. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Change we can believe in. (Score:5, Informative)
Bzzzz. Democrat now vice-president Joe Biden received more donations from Delaware credit corporations than any other congressman. Democrats are lackeys of the corporations just the same as the Republicans.
Re:Compared to being honest. (Score:1, Informative)
It's not compared to who. It's compared to ...
And there I was thinking you were going to point out that the preposition 'to' takes the dative and 'whom' would be correct here. Very disappointing.
Re:Third Party (Score:3, Informative)
You are confused. Geithner is one of acolytes of Robert Rubin. One can draw a straight line from Rubin, Greenspan, Summers and other Wall Street whores to the current fiasco. All were for "deregulation", NAFTA etc. etc. and thought economic bubbles are the apex of human civilization and did everything in their power to set the stage for this catastrophe. And note that all of those imbecilic "best and brightest" were in turns equally active during Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. Their class warfare crap, the transfer of all real wealth to the richest people and substituting it with debt for everyone else, is simply above party politics. Geithner is an old Wall Street insider and is at present merely attempting to continue with the panicked Bernanke's plan to stick as many fingers into the rapidly disintegrating dike holding untold trillions of debt all of these followers of Rubin, Milton and others have shat out over decades.
Blowhards like Limbaugh and Hannity have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Although it is telling that you would resort to accusing anyone who voices any criticism to be automatically associated with the most vile of opportunistic ass-clowns whose only role is to make things worse for everyone by doing their damnest to appeal to most base instincts of their listeners and to ensure that no informed debate takes place.
Re:It's government corruption. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Your comment is a typical case of ignorance. (Score:5, Informative)
But most people don't know about this. Why? Because it's painful to learn, I guess.
Although you certainly have some good flamebait attempt at the beginning, you do make a point at the end.
The reason the majority of people outside the USA are not aware (or don't care) of the USA corruption is because they are very busy living their lives coping with their governments corruption.
Also, as you didn't say (but that is the point you made), the reason USA corruption is *very*important, is because it affects several countries OUTSIDE the USA.
However, GP has some wisdom in his comment. My wife parents live in the North of Mexico, where due to the fear state imposed by and other paramiliar groups, they can't live a normal life. [wikipedia.org]
The issue is that they get 'used' to it, and now you hear them saying things like "as long as you obey the rules and do not go out after it is dark, and keep a lo profile, everything is OK".
Now, the sad thing with corruption is that people in the government is *well* aware of who are these people and mostly where do they live (for example, where my Wife's parents live, there is a guy who is a renown entrepreneur but is also known to have links with drug cartels. However, police (haha, police, they are deeper in the shit) do not get him for interrogation because they know if they push, someone higher in the government will punish them (at least) or they will get "levanton" (kidnapped in the middle of the day), "tabliza" (to be hit by wooden sticks) or just disappear.
Re:not entirely (Score:3, Informative)
Libertarians believe in a free market w/o interference except to protect the rights of the individual (contract law). Since corporations don't exist naturally, but are instead a government-invented entity granted artificial personhood, most libertarians don't think corporations should exist. They think companies should be directly-owned by a person or partners.
In effect, they agree with Jefferson who felt corporate laws should be expunged and corporations killed off.
Re:It's government corruption. (Score:5, Informative)
Corruption no, compromise yes. The fledgling country needed to get all the states to go along with the Constitution to have a chance at succeeding so they made compromises that were appropriate for the times. Do not judge the decisions of the 1700's by today's standards. Consider the times.
Slavery was an accepted tradition in much of the world, from east to west. Read the history of the numbers of Africans transported as slaves around the world. Many were sent to China, but where are their descendants today? Or the fact that slavery existing in parts of South America until nearly the 20th century. The fact that the northerners got slaves recognized as three-fifths of a person at all was a compromise. Slavery only officially existed in the United States for around 75 years, from the signing of the Constitution until the Emancipation Proclamation. And yet we continue to see news reports of slavery being actively practiced in parts of Africa and Asia.
The electoral college exists for a very simple reason, to ensure all states have a say in electing the President. If we did not have the electoral college and only used majority popular vote, then candidates would only need to convince the residents of the largest states/cities. The rest of the country would be ignored.
By having Senators appointed instead of elected, the Senate was not susceptible to populist sentiment. Consider how impeachment works -- the House presses charges but the Senate is the jury. Whether you agreed with the bogus impeachment trial of Clinton or not, it showed one thing: impeachment of a popular president is now a thing of the past, regardless of his/her actions. A Senate that reads polls to see what people think before sitting on a jury will never impeach a popular official. Read the writings of the founders, they envisioned Congress to be made up of citizen-statesmen who would server a short time then go back home to their business and farms. Though there were federalists at the time, most did not envision politics as a lifetime career. Add to that the fact that originally the VP was the second most popular candidate in the election, where today the candidates pick someone most people wouldn't actually want as president, folks would not want to see today's VPs taking over as President.
And as for the Bill of Rights, no where does it specify gender or race. At the time of the signing, it may have been perceived to only apply to white males, but it is not codified that way. The Constitution was conceived of and written by white males, simply because at that time in the history of the US, that is who ran things. There are a couple of uses of the masculine pronouns him and himself but most refer to people or person. Considering the banning of the use of gender pronouns in official documents in the EU just happened this week, I'd say this wasn't an attempt by the writers to mean only men were covered, it is just the writings of the times.
It always frustrates me to read and hear people make comments about actions or activities that took place hundreds of years ago using the standards and moralities of today. Looking at the world at the time of the Constitution, the fact that there even is a Bill of Rights and that the Constitution was written as a limitation on the rights of the government, not the governed, is amazing.
So instead of continuing to bash aspects of something written over 200 years ago, that have provided more opportunities and freedoms than anything else from that time period, why don't you attack those that are trying to destroy it and take away those hard won freedoms?