Democrats Appoint RIAA Shill For Convention

An anonymous reader sends us to Boing Boing for a report that "the Director of Communications for the RIAA, Jenni Engebretsen, has been appointed Deputy CEO for Public Affairs for the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver." The DNC site has the official press release. Cory Doctorow notes that the RIAA is the most hated "corporation" in America, having beaten out Halliburton and Wal-Mart for the honor, and writes for the DNC's attention, "This represents a potential shear with the left-wing blogosphere."

Comments

Re:They suck, yeah.

[morgan_greywolf]

This sucks, but what are we going to do? Vote Republican?
No thanks.

It might interest you to know that there are more than 70 political parties in the United States.

And this is a surprise?

[smellsofbikes]

First off: a person who does communications for group 1 is probably going to do a reasonable job of doing communications for group 2. If you're hiring based on merit, how much does it matter if the person is one of satan's catchers?

Secondly: the RIAA is everyone in power's best friend. Republicans love the big companies, Democrats love the film and rock stars, and both parties just absolutely adore lobbyists. They're like groupies only they give money.

Re:When will people learn

[Captain Splendid]

Democrats!=liberal. The sooner everybody realizes this, the sooner we can actually have a liberal party in the US.

Re:So does this mean

[dreddnott]

My first impression as a good non-article-reading Slashdotter was that Jenni Engebretsen was nothing but a career RIAA thug, but after reading the articles and her Wikipedia entry it seems that this is merely a return to the status quo - people should have been more alarmed when Jenni went from the Democrats over to the RIAA in the first place! I blame Boing Boing's inflammatory and sensationalist headline and Slashdot's repetition of it for most of the posts below.

Big Democrats are VERY Pro-Big Media

[algae]

A while back, I complained to my Senator, Diane Feinstein about how the Broadcast flag would cut into time-shifting and other fair use rights, and that it was basically corporate welfare to preserve a flagging industry in the face of a changing environment. Here's the response I got:

Thank you for writing to me about the digital broadcast flag. I appreciate hearing from you.

I feel strongly that we must prevent the theft of copyrighted works, and that includes digital television (DTV) programming. As we move forward in the digital age, it is increasingly easy for unauthorized copies of copyrighted works to be made and illegally distributed. Over-the-air digital content is the easiest to pirate.

As we contemplate the use of new technologies to protect copyrighted works, we must pay careful attention to ensure that a balance is struck between competitive protections and individual consumer interests. It is important to allow for the continued fair use of copyrighted material, even while we seek to stop unauthorized reproductions from being illegally distributed outside the home and over the Internet.

Again, thank you for writing. Please know that as the Senate considers legislation of the broadcast flag, I will be sure to keep your views in mind.

Diane Feinstein is what I call a DINO - Democrat in Name Only. She's pro-drug war, pro big media, anti-consumer rights, and is a socially conservative fiscal liberal. Her and Joe Lieberman give progressives a bad name.