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Cloud Computing, Music Lockers, and the Supreme Court
An anonymous reader writes "Net speculation has swirled about the DOJ being stacked with media company-friendly attorneys who will throw the consumer under the bus, but in one of the first rulings, the Solicitor General defended network DVRs, mentioned cloud computing and a music locker — which has to be a first for a Supreme Court brief. Michael Robertson chronicles the latest developments and you can read the brief for yourself."
We just discussed this 2 days ago.
Why do people assume that a former RIAA lawyer is not going to vigorously defend the American people? I was going to go off on a rant and explain (for the billionth time) that lawyers have an ethical obligation to zealously advocate for their clients; that professional responsibility demands that lawyers follow the instructions of their clients (up to a carefully defined point); and that lawyers represent murderers and rapists all the time without personally endorsing those pursuits.
But then I thought about all the people employed in the tech industry that have no love for the companies they work for, and are even openly dismissive of the products they once peddled. If I wanted to diagnose the problems associated with a particular code or piece of software, who better to ask then the people who created the software's architecture? The law is exactly the same way.
Moreover, these are exactly the right people to bring the RIAA to justice. They better than anyone else understand the legal strengths and weaknesses of the RIAA's position. Really people, do you think that these people sell their souls to the RIAA for all eternity? They understand the tactics and how to fight them.
Someone might look at my current employment as an energy industry lawyer and say I am unqualified to take a job with the government regulating the energy industry. These people are morons. There are few people qualified to police an amazingly complicated industry than those who were once a part of it. Barring corruption and direct conflict of interest checks (which are mandatory), if I were in charge of regulating an industry I would insist on hiring people with experience. Why is this so hard to understand???
In this particular litigation, the plaintiffs and defendants made various stipulations. Notably the plaintiffs agreed to sue over primary copyright infringement but not on contributory (secondary) infringement. Defendants, on the other hand, agreed not to raise the various fair-use defenses that were available to them. In at least part of their brief the DOJ asserted that because of these waivers, this was not a useful test case for the Supreme Court because it wouldn't examine all of the arguments that could be made for each side. The DOJ didn't particularly come out in favour of IT rights; they just felt this wasn't the best case to settle them.