Obama picks RIAA's favorite lawyer for a top Justice post
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industry. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, the doyen of the "free culture" movement, endorsed the Illinois senator, as did Google CEO Eric Schmidt and even the Pirate Party.
That was then. As president-elect, one of Obama's first tech-related decisions has been to select the Recording Industry Association of America's favorite lawyer to be the third in command at the Justice Department. And Obama's pick as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position, is the lawyer who oversaw the defense of the Copyright Term Extension Act--the same law that Lessig and his allies unsuccessfully sued to overturn.
Obama made both announcements on Monday, saying that his picks "bring the integrity, depth of experience and tenacity that the Department of Justice demands in these uncertain times." The soon-to-be-appointees: Tom Perrelli for associate attorney general and David Ogden for deputy attorney general.
Campaign rhetoric aside, this should be no surprise. Obama's selection of Joe Biden as vice president showed that the presidential hopeful was comfortable with someone with firmly pro-RIAA views. Biden urged the criminal prosecutions of copyright-infringing peer-to-peer users and tried to create a new federal felony involving playing unauthorized music.
Perrelli is currently a partner in the Washington offices of Jenner and Block, where he represented the RIAA in a a slew of cases, including a high-profile bid to unmask file sharers without the requirement of a judge reviewing the evidence first. Verizon initially lost to the RIAA, but eventually prevailed in 2003 when a federal appeals court ruled the record labels' strategy under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was unlawful.
Perrelli has represented the RIAA in other lawsuits against individual file sharers. One filed in Michigan accuses a university student of distributing "hundreds of sound recordings over his system without the authorization of the copyright owners." A lawsuit against a Princeton University student makes similar arguments; Perrelli and his colleagues also tried to force Charter Communications to give up the names of 93 file-trading subscribers.
A 2004 summary of a Boston lawsuit written by Harvard's Berkman Center--which opposed the RIAA in this and a current case--quotes Perrelli as telling a federal judge that it would be easy to determine who was using a wireless network to share music. "It is correct that the actual downloader may be someone else in the household," he said, but any errors can be determined easily after a "modest amount of discovery."
An article on his law firm's Web site says that Perrelli represented SoundExchange before the Copyright Royalty Board--and obtained a 250 percent increase in the royalty rate for music played over the Internet by companies like AOL and Yahoo. Perrelli previously worked in the Clinton Justice Department.
An article in Legal Times titled "Building an Entertainment Beast in D.C." says that in 2002, Perrelli used Jenner's reputation as an appellate law firm to "get a meeting with officials at the RIAA, at a time when Internet file-sharing entities like Napster were threatening the music business." A year later, in 2003, the law firm recruited Steven Fabrizio, previously the RIAA's senior vice president for business and legal affairs, and business began booming (the RIAA also used the Jenner law firm to write a friend-of-the-court brief in the copyright extension lawsuit).
If confirmed by the Senate, which is unlikely to pose much of a hurdle, Perrelli would oversee the department's civil division, the antitrust division, and the civil rights division.
Obama's choice for deputy attorney general--the second-in-command at Justice--is David Ogden, who's currently a partner at the WilmerHale law firm.
As assistant attorney general for the civil division, Ogden was responsible for organizing the defense of the Child Online Protection Act, or COPA, an antiporn law that has been challenged by the ACLU in court for more than a decade with no resolution. His department also successfully defended the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ogden's biography at Wilmer Hale says only that he represents the "media and Internet industries, as well as major trade and professional associations," without listing details. The Justice Department, barring exceptional cases, has a duty to defend laws enacted by Congress.
Perrelli, on the other hand, went out of his way to recruit the RIAA as a very lucrative client: his law firm bills some partners' time at a princely $1,000 an hour.
During his confirmation hearing, it will be instructive to see if senators ask whether his zealous anti-file sharing advocacy can make him an objective civil servant--especially when these same politicians want the Justice Department to sue peer-to-peer pirates at taxpayer's expense. (Then again, if that proposal becomes law, Perrelli's surely the right man for the job.)
It will also be instructive to see if this week's news prompts some of the RIAA's longtime adversaries to moderate their enthusiasm for Obama's technology policies.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Such fitting lyrics. "Then I'll get on my knees and pray, We don't get fooled again..."
I'm starting to be very afraid of who his supreme court choices may be.
Perhaps the representation of Spamhaus is some form of penance?
These people are not about change and neither are any of the other picks obama has.
same old same old us politics as usual
/P
Hope and change my rear. Dupes.
Is anyone besides myself laughing at how quickly the buyers' remorse is settling in? The man isn't even in office yet! LOL
*Hangs idealistic head in shame*
If it was really about defending independent artist's rights to make a living, I'd be all for it, but just judging from the way these groups hammered internet radio last year, they're only concerned with lawyers' fees and corporate profits.
Deal with it,
if he said before the election "when im in i will let the people break whatever laws they want to" would you have elected him then ?
Stealing copyright is just that its stealing, and thats the law. the elected leader and governments responsibility is to uphold the laws. No matter who you elect, you and US peeps have to NOT break the laws of your country.
So get over it i say.. and dont steal, and you wont have anything to worry about.
Become a singer and make a hit song, and get the rewards for your skill and effort, instead of having your work stolen and copied where you get nothing.
I say good on him, you have much more to worry about as a nation other than if you can steal songs or not
There's a reason the only case the RIAA ever won was turned over.
That's not even addressing the idea of what intellectual property is supposed to mean.
So, with Obama hiring a RIAA lawyer it's basically like he's hiring a dirty cop that everyone knows is dirty and it's probably because someone is lobbying or putting some money in someone's pocket somewhere. You know, I support cops, but not dirty cops. Well this is the same thing except it's a dirty lawyer instead. Of course, you're the kind of guy that probably supports dirty cops and lawyers so whatever.
You have potential there.
Explain this.
I buy a song.
I sell the song when I'm done.
I have the right to sell the song as a first sale right.
I am breaking "the law" when I do so.
Not that long ago I wouldn't be.
Something went wrong along the way. Part of what went wrong is being appointed to office.
If there were no movie theaters and everything went straight to DVD, you'd see a striking price difference between them and CDs.
Dudes, you just aren't going to get away with taking IP (movies, music, software, lyrics, ...) without paying. It just can't be allowed to happen, the future of the world economy depends on it. Not kidding. Deal with it. Quit stealing. The more you persist, the more draconian the countermeasures will be. Get a clue.
Keep up the good fight man... your blog appears to be the last line of defense these days...
I don't see nothing wrong with him. He's a lawyer and I don't like lawyers, but I wouldn't have the justice department ran by an engineer.
"Perrelli, on the other hand, went out of his way to recruit the RIAA as a very lucrative client."
He didn't just work for the RIAA. From those above quotes in the article it sounds like he actively lobbied the RIAA to hire him and his firm to go after file sharers. And then he tried to defend the RIAA's tactics which were later judged to be illegal. It sounds to me like he was much more of just an RIAA-contracted lawyer just doing his job, ethically ambivalent to the outcome. He chose to be on the RIAA's side because it would make him a lot of money. It's certainly not a stretch to think that he may have had something to do with devising the RIAA's illegal tactics as well.
At the very least, even if you think that what he did was perfectly fine, his performance as a lawyer was a complete failure. His defense of the RIAA's tactics failed completely in both the court of law and the court of public opinion. Not only did it fail to stop file sharing, it made everyone HATE the RIAA - even many recording artists who are now investigating ways to self-publish.
How does that resume make this man an appropriate choice for third in command in the justice department? Remember he will be overseeing "the department's civil division, the antitrust division, and the civil rights division." Nice, way to go Obama.
So far...
-Obama, has hand-picked a Vice-President that has a well-documented record of opposing the U.S. Constitution on numerous issues.
-Obama, has chosen an Attorney-General who disagrees with every single Supreme-Court Judge, regarding the 2nd-Amendment (Obama, and his appointee, ...AND the Vice President-elect, have flatly said that law-abiding American-citizens DO NOT have a right to own firearms).
-Obama, supports "REAL-ID".
-Obama, Voted for the one of the greatest expansions of Executive power in since the Civil War (contained within the first "stimulus package").
-Obama, supports, illegal, "warrant-less wiretapping" AND "immunizing" corporations that KNOWINGLY violate Federal-Law.
-Obama, refuses to condemn Israel for their murderous rampage in Gaza.
And, now, we are finding out just how he feels about the importance of using the Governments-power to serve corporate-whims... instead of the American-People.
So... I guess the big "change"... is actually, simply, that one of his parents was black..?
Ooh... I feel all WARM and fuzzy, inside... No wait... Maybe, thats my RIGHTEOUS-RAGE, and INDIGNATION as an American..!
Does anybody else hear the sound of distant drums, growing closer... ever closer..?
"freeptard - An individual, usually possessing radically right-wing political views..."
...I wonder if "MSSlayer" would mind explaining his, apparently pointless, rather inaccurate, characterization... since I have, until very recently, been far more commonly called, "...a bleeding-heart liberal" by "right-wingers"..? Or, did "MSSlayer" simply feel it necessary to post SOMETHING... ANYTHING... even if it was an utterly mindless childish-insult (failing to address even a single relevant issue)..?
Oh well... my being something of a centrist... leaning more towards an egalitarian, libertarian, philosophy, and generally opposing both extremes of, right-wing, Fascism, AND, left-wing, Socialism (since they both actually, seem to, inevitably lead to totalitarianism... God, I have come to HATE "...ISMs")... I guess, I should be used to dogmatic, ad hominem, knee-jerk, attacks... instead of any form of reasoned-response from either extreme.
Still... I DO find it unsettling to, so suddenly, be lumped-in with the very groups that I have, so vehemently, opposed for so long.
Yet still i hear over and over again that he's going to take people's guns. Is there just some gut reaction when people NRA folks and libertarians see the -D after a politicians name that not only do they want to take your guns they have said so publicly. It doesn't matter that it is not true in any way shape or form.
You know, I get libertarianism and small government ideology... I don't agree with it but I understand it as a philosophy. What I don't get is the complete distortion of reality.
look at his voting record. That would be a better indication of his stance rather than what he might have said to win an election.
not an agent of change in Springfield, IL
not an agent of change in DC.
His campaign is a $600,000,000 dream fest. I knew he was a demagogue and he is showing his true colors.
Most people have no clue about what copyright was supposed to mean. It did NOT mean "give me money". It meant that the creator was to be given credit for his works. That does not always and automatically equate to money. Think about what Thomas Jefferson wanted for the Library of Congress. If existing copyright was around back then I doubt we'd have libraries at all.
Obama's love for the government over the individual is why picking someone like this RIAA lawyer to head up parts of his Justice Department will ultimately hurt the average citizen.
BTW, I didn't vote for Obama nor McCain. Both hate the Constitution. Vote libertarian from now on if you want to actually get "change".
- by Asia_Grady January 7, 2009 6:24 AM PST
- We all knew Obama's strength was his ability to bring all sides to the table to pick the most attractive option. Who knows, these two picks could be potential Trojan horses for the left or the right wing. I trust they will do fine, when you change jobs, that's the point, you don't do the same job anymore.Their responsibility is to serve all Americans, not just the Media Industry. Besides, would you want to make trouble with your former lawyer? esp, if he worked for the government??? I think not.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (57 Comments)Additionally, President-Elect Obama can veto anything not in the interest of the American People. Right? Amen. (insert deity's name of choice here) Bless America.
Our new President is not a dummy. I bet he plays chess, respects his wife, and probably even helps the kids with the homework. We have to stop relying on the government for the micromanagement of our lives. To alot of people, music is like food, if they can't afford it, they're probably going to steal it for survival. Even with so many people losing their jobs, 2008 was still a record year for digital music sales. I'm convinced that illegal downloads saved the music industry.
The competitive nature is challenging artists like myself to make better music, contrary to what BET, MTV, and VH1, seem to display these days. A newer artist like me, doesn't mind downloading and sharing DRM-free downloads (wheter paid for or free), so that there's folks in town that care about my music and can get excited about seeing me perform live and buying a t-shirt, cha ching. Why don't the record companies pay the listeners who share and download for market test research and advertising. Which one of the five majors will sign up for that?
It took us 10+ years to see the Bushes "true colors" and Obama's in offce negative two weeks. We picked him to decide for us It's fair to criticize a decision but If you voted for Obama or not, give the man a chance to do his job before you attack his character. As funny as Tina Fey made it seem, DO we really want a whole country of Sarah Palins, making unfair accusations unchallenged.