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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?"
It has been well known the republicrats and democans are the tools of the MAFIAA(Music And Film Industry Association of America) and Omaba is no different. The libertarians have long known Obama is for as much change as Bush and Clinton, none. Both major parties are for corporate wealth and will use legislation to back said corporate wealth.
-bob
Perhaps this might be the thing to spark a true third-party movement in the USA? Have we not seen time and time again how neither Republicans nor Democrats are any different in the grand scheme of things? I can't remember how often I had been told that Obama was going to change things for the better, how somehow Obama was going to not be in the corporation's or the party's pocketbook because he got most of his campaign funds from independent donates... and what does he do when he gets elected? He carries on policies that have always failed, meanwhile undermining capitalism and sending our country deeper into recession by both his words and by the laws he wants to pass. A third party could change this, if our congress could include more than Republicans, Democrats and the odd Independent, our country would be a much, much, much, better place.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
A change for the worse? I mean, when the government tries to 'help' a judge to make a fair decision...
The RIAA can't win in the courts, with advertising, or education of the young. Lobbyists haven't been able to get new laws passed. So the CEOs get their guys into the DOJ.
What did we expect?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
As a registered republican, I knew that the republicans would do everything in their power to secure the oil interests.
Now that the dems are in power, you're surprised that they are doing everything to secure the media's interests? Really?
Raise your hand if you were surprised by this posting.
Because most third parties either more liberal or conservative seem to stick with proven policies rather then trying to "compromise" and screwing the public by the result. For example, its great for the economy to remove restrictions on companies, but similarly, you then don't throw a bunch of tax dollars at them and tell them to spend them however they want. If you are going to remove restrictions, you then remove government influence so they don't get "bailed out" at taxpayer expense. If you are going to "bail out" private companies, you are going to restrict what the companies can do. The more conservative parties would not bail out companies but they would reduce regulation. The more liberal parties would bail out companies, but they would have many more restrictions. In either the economy would at least have a chance to prosper.
Copyright would be the same thing. Either companies are allowed to include DRM and it is legal to break the DRM and copyright is loosened. Or companies are not allowed to include DRM but copyright law would be strengthened from its original (not today, but when it was first made) idea. In the current situation, DRM is allowed and it is illegal to break and strong, lengthy copyrights. The public loses today.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
False dichotomies are lies.
Things will not change as long as the people with the gold are able to make the rules by buying lawmakers.
The fix is that candidates should only be permitted to accept campaign funds from people who are allowed to vote for them.
The "Entertainment" industry has "contributed" massive sums to the Democrat party for many years. Did anyone think that there would be no reciprocity? Corporations and wealthy individuals do not make political contributions because they are ideologically motivated. They do it because there will be a return on the investment. Well, here it is.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
Commentators had been fearing that the Obama/Biden administration would be tools of the RIAA; does this filing confirm those fears?"
There is a implication there that the alternative McCain/Palin administration wouldn't have been tools of the RIAA. Whoever is in government is a tool of big industry. Its the fundamental natural of capitalist democracy.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Either way this isn't a good thing, but it may be premature to conclude that this indicates any particular bias towards towards the RIAA.
I agree with you there. As was noted the last time this was brought up, their brief really isn't about the RIAA or file-sharing so much as the constitutionality of the statutory damages part of the Copyright Act.
On the other hand, that way of looking at the Eight Amendment is so sketch. It basically amounts to saying, "We (the Government) can't exact ridiculously high fines from you, but we can write a law that allows other to do so, with our consent and enforcement."
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
The thing about libertarians is that they are VERY PRO IP, and very pro ownership. In fact, considering that I am libertarian and a card carrying member of the Swiss Libertarian party many would not like what libertarians represent...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Compared to everything else....take this lovely mafia family over here...or this fair and justly operated drug ring in south america....
All far less corrupt than the fairest of governments.
"The GPL is viral by design, like any good religion."
We need to decentralize the government. That way large corporations cant DoS our congress.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
and other recent laws could be viewed as "corporate protectionism", which is classically a right-wing action, the Democrats have historically been particular friends of the entertainment industry. Which leaves the American people without a Government protector in this area.
The only recourse we have is the courts. Let's hope that is sufficient.
The statement "There will never be a point in voting Libertarian." Is false and most likely flamebait.
I vote for the person that closest represents my value system and promises to do the things I would like to see done while they are in the White House. REGARDLESS of the fact that they may lose. Voting for either Republican or Democrat because "no one else will win" is not only morally bankrupt it is foolish.
There is no point voting the two major parties, they're owned by interests, not by the people.
BTW, Jesse Ventura won the governor's race as an independent so not only is your logic false, it only serves the status quo.
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt.
EXTREMELY corrupt? Compared to who?
Does it matter? Is it OK to be corrupt if some other government is more corrupt?
You won't get an expanded menu until you tell the restaurant owner you aren't buying either the chicken and rice or rice and chicken and stick to it. If you just keep buying one of the two exactly the same selections on the menu, he isn't going to change, no matter how much you ask or beg for a third or fourth or fifth choice.
With voting, you can do this. You have to crack 1% to get to 2%, then crack 2 to get to 3 and so on. We've had examples in the past where third party candidates hit close to 10%, and when that level hit and the high level corrupt goons in the R and D parties got scared, and with the help of the compliant media demonizing or outright ignoring those alternatives and hijacked congress keeping the voting regs tilted in favor of the same two parties, it dropped back down. And the media IS complicit, they only "allow" the two major parties in the so called national debates. The league of women voters dropped sponsorship of the debates over that stance and being forced to acquiesce to some other shenanigans like scripting in advance, they refused to participate any longer and called it a "fraud on the american people". The big corporate media should have had the integrity and balls to do exactly the same at the exact same time, but being mostly controlled tools and way more a propaganda arm of the establishment than being independent journalists, they didn't.
In other words, I categorically reject the notion that casting the ONE vote you have for who you really want is a waste. Maintaining that criminal gang duopoly by spending your one vote-and that is all you have realistically- on it is the only true waste (that or not voting at all) if you really don't want that criminal duopoly to remain in power. I know I have a clear conscious, been voting third or alternate party for decades now, and I can say I don't vote for the status quo of corruption and malfeasance in government as "business as usual".
If you vote for one of those back room and media picked for you political sock puppets. no matter what your reason if it is anything except really wanting that particular doofus...that's it, that is who you voted for and you are affirming their continuance of corruption and malfeasance. It doesn't matter what you think in the back of your mind, what matters is that you personally gave them a signal that what they are doing is perfectly fine. If you don't want to do that, then don't, and it is that simple.
The more people who are not made artificially afraid of that the better. I refuse to be intimidated by this threat of "wasting your vote", because I've been around long enough to clearly see the only major difference with those two criminal gangs is which of your pockets they want to pick first, and which of our born with rights they put at the head of the list to infringe on. I just slap refuse to vote in the affirmative for either of those bogus alleged choices.
while it may look like a choice of rice and chicken versus chicken and rice, until you can get the menu to expand you pick one of the two or you don't eat.
What can someone do to expand this menu other than vote third party and volunteer for a third party campaign?
Revolution.
False - though you may not gain executive power, you still can win voices that can be heard and votes in the house and the senate.
--
How can you get rid of corruption if people rather vote for who they think will win rather than what they believe in?
They only won't win if no-one votes for them. That's sort of how elections work.
Western democracies do not compare well to the high standards of Western democracies.
It's really depressing that so many people are this stupid. Every argument against voting third party eventually boils down to "third parties can't win" which completely misses the point.
If you're voting against what you really want just so you can brag that you voted for the winner, then you're doing it wrong. Do us all a favor and stay home next election day.
Maybe not
There's no point voting for the major parties. They're going to win anyway.
Property is theft.
You mean "chains we can believe in."
it totally ignored all of the authorities and arguments that had been made by the Free Software Foundation in its brief
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.
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.
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.
3 months ago, those 2 and 3 DOJ lackeys worked for the very organization on which behalf they're intervening.
If the administration were serious about that whole lobbying conflict of interest line they touted in the beginning, the DOJ would quietly side-step this one.
They're not, showing that the whole entertainment lobby is untrustworthy.
I've said it before, but this proves it, those appointments were just plain stupid. Whomever Obama chose to vett those picks was not aware of the truth, damn truth, or actual truth in that matter.
That they were qualified to work those posts may be true, but the appointments having the integrity and loyalty to serve is just truthy.
They're using their grammar skills there.
The way some of you are discussing this leads me to believe you have very rigid beliefs about what makes one libertarian; rigidity that I don't see associated with other parties/political theories.
Do all democrats believe one thing? Do all democrats truly represent democracy well?
Do all republicans truly believe in a true republic? Shit, Lincoln was a republican, compare his politics to that of the GOP of today...
And the guy that brings up Ron Paul makes my point, because Ron Paul wasn't a libertarian candidate; he's a republican (even though he holds a lot of core libertarian values).
Basically, in this day and age in America the party a candidate associates his/herself with doesn't mean that much, in that it certainly doesn't mean that that person holds to an encyclopedic manifesto of party beliefs and positions - it's not like it used to be....people seem to have this idea of libertarianism that is rigid and sounds like an encyclopedic definition, (EG a definition of theory, but not of practice) - that any candidate who is a libertarian either wants to put everything up for sale or is crazy and can't win - I think that many people hold libertarian values, and from the years I have spent on Slashdot I would say that a large number of the people who comment here have a strong libertarian bent (not necessarily the libertarian party, but libertarian as in beleiving strongly in personal freedom).
My feeling (especially in these times) is that with any school of thought, you should take what you want, what you believe - and leave the rest...Of course, the media and the government don't seem to like this, because they want people to be easily pigeonholed and thus easily manipulated....
About right now I find it hard to believe that the US would not be better off had someone other than Obama or McCain been elected - I'm not saying any candidate is perfect, but certainly had Ron Paul won we would have someone who isn't in the pocket of big business and big money/industry and someone who does more than provide lip service to respecting the constitution.
As has been said many times before, until we get away from these two big money political parties there isn't going to be any real change; and not only that, things seem to progressively be getting worse for just about everyone.
You are part of this revolution. Do not accede to the will of those who seek to control you.
I damned well am not part of your revolution. I've sold words for money before, and I'll do so again. I'd happily sue the pants offa someone for redistributing my work for free, if I can catch 'em.
I object to the criminalization of a civil offense, the RIAA's invasions of privacy, extortion, barratry, and general thuggish behavior, the current and past administrations' acceptance of soft money bribery in exchange for political support to the industry, and jerks like you who think free downloads are jam today and jam tomorrow. I have a problem with what's rapidly becoming perpetual copyright, as well, but I agree with the principle of copyright.
Technology has the potential to put a stop to much of the leeching practiced by publication and distribution houses and middlemen, which is a good thing. But if it's done at the expense of those who create - writers, painters, musicians, game designers, and even editors - as you advocate, then you become the leech.
If said official can't be bribed for less than a million dollars, then that greatly reduces the mischief that can be done.
So wealthy corporations and private interests would be the only ones with enough money to to bribe. Exactly the way it is now. All you have done is raise the price.
Is there anyone in Washington that is not bought and paid for? I doubt it seriously! Both parties are paid for by the same people.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
There will never be a point in voting Libertarian.
1) The candidate won't win.
2) You'll only peel votes from a Republican.
3) Some of them are scarier than the devils we know.
There is always a point in voting for the person you would actually like to see in office.
1) I don't vote to be on the winning team. I vote for who i want to see in the position. Independents will never be able to win if you keep voting against people instead of for people.
2) This one is ridiculous. If you are voting for the Libertarian, you clearly dont want the republican in office, so how are you peeling a vote from the republican? If i dont want any of the people running in office, i dont vote for any of them. The lesser of two evils is still fucking evil.
3) I dont vote for scary libertarians.
i do not hold a political party affiliation. I'm not advocating voting libertarian. I'm advocating voting for anyone, regardless of party, that you think would be good in the position.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Hell...the founding fathers knew this. They had problems with corruption right at the start. That's why the constitution has so many limits on the power of government. Limits that are just blatantly ignored today. The constitution has been under non-stop assault for decades now as the jackals in DC chip away at the protections in it. I noticed the saying "that government governs best which governs least" was not in my childrens history books. I guess it's not PC nowadays.
Ahhh, Ron Paul believes the same things as the Founders believed, like individual liberty and a constitutionally-limited government, and the Founders were a bunch of nuts. /end sarcasm
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Typical American attitude at the moment. "Woe me, my country is going to implode and it's the most corrupt and worst place on the planet!" Fucking Americans, try living in some of these other places before whining about how bad your own place is.
Actually, as an athiest, I think that if more people considered "What would Jesus do?", the world would probably be a better place in general.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal