Obama DOJ Sides With RIAA

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?"

Comments

It's government corruption.

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt.

Re:It's government corruption.

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:If you didn't vote libertarian, you ASKED FOR T

[iluvcapra]

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:I'm Confused

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

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:If you didn't vote libertarian, you ASKED FOR T

[ildon]

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:Change we can believe in.

[iamweezman]

Yes. It's the one that all the other's call crazy. His name is Ron Paul.

Re:Change we can believe in.

[commodore64_love]

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:Your comment is a typical case of ignorance.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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.