Will Obama's DOJ Intervene To Help RIAA?

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Cloud, a Pennsylvania case in which the RIAA's statutory damages theory — seeking from 2,200 to 450,000 times the amount of actual damages — is being tested, the US Department of Justice has just filed papers indicating that it is considering intervening in the case to defend the constitutionality of such awards, and requesting an extension of time (PDF) in which to decide whether such intervention 'is appropriate.' This is an early test of whether President Obama will make good on his promises (a) not to allow industry insiders to participate in cases affecting the industry they represented (the 2nd and 3rd highest DOJ officials are RIAA lawyers) and (b) to look out for ordinary citizens rather than big corporations."

Comments

Re:take your punishment like good kids

[east coast]

Don't forget that early electronic computers weren't "viable" alternatives to guys who knew how to really use an abacus either.

Killing a technology that is in it's infancy because it doesn't produce the exact results that you are looking for today is extremely short sighted. The bottom line is that ethanol production can be refined to make better gains but if the technology never gets off the ground? There will be growing pains with any alternative fuel, are we going to back down from each one because we can't get the bang out of them that we can out of oil? If that's the case than let's just drop this whole pretense of being willing to do what's needed and just let Detroit go about their normal business with the internal combustion engine instead of wasting money and time on alternative this and that.