RIAA Lobbyist Becomes Federal Judge, Rules On File-Sharing Cases

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "Last week, Washington, DC federal judge Beryl Howell ruled on three mass file-sharing lawsuits. Judges in Texas, West Virginia, and Illinois had all ruled recently that such lawsuits were defective in various ways, but Howell gave her cases the green light; attorneys could use the federal courts to sue thousands of people at once and then issue mass subpoenas to Internet providers. Beryl Howell isn't the only judge to believe this, but her important ruling is especially interesting because of Howell's previous work: lobbying for the recording industry during the time period when the RIAA was engaged in its own campaign of mass lawsuits against individuals. The news, first reported in a piece at TorrentFreak, nicely illustrates the revolving door between government and industry."

Comments

Soon we all be very afraid to pirate

[slashdance2]

In fact my friend was charged 30000$ of alleged downloads. Here I blogged about that What to do next?

It is simple

[Anonymous Coward]

The most objective and unbiased position is that filesharing is theft, that everyone who engages in it should be financially destroyed because of it, and that all involved parties should be compelled to do whatever is necessary in order to enforce this.

This position is not a radical extreme, but rather a simple and obvious result of an honest reading of the law. Both the letter and spirit agree on this point, as do the majority of the educated members of the industry.

In fact, an ex RIAA lawyer is ideal for these sorts of cases, since they are the most knowledgable and the least biased.

Only a criminal would disagree.

Re:Enjoy!

[s13g3]

Please mod parent as troll. And PLEASE stop using the word fascist in context to every government you don't like or understand.