“The Obama administration for the first time is weighing in on a Recording Industry Association of America file sharing lawsuit and is supporting hefty awards of as much as $150,000 per purloined music track,” David Kravets reports for Wired.
“The government said the damages range of $750 to $150,000 per violation of the Copyright Act was warranted,” Kravets reports.
“The position — that the Copyright Act’s monetary damages are not unconstitutionally excessive — mirrors the one taken by the Bush administration and should come as no surprise,” Kravets reports.
“Two top lawyers in President Barack Obama’s Justice Department are former RIAA lawyers: Donald Verrilli Jr. is the associate deputy attorney general who brought down Grokster and fought to prevent a retrial in the Jammie Thomas case,” Kravets reports. “Then there’s the No. 2 in the DOJ, Tom Perrilli. As Verrilli’s former boss, Perrilli argued in 2002 that internet service providers should release customer information to the RIAA even without a court subpoena.”
MacDailyNews Note: Of course, there’s Biden, too: Obama picks staunch RIAA, MPAA supporter Biden as running mate – August 25, 2008
Kravets’ full article is here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Kendon” for the heads up.]
