Will Dept. of Justice Officials from the RIAA Recuse Themselves from Influencing RIAA Cases?

February 17th, 2009 by Kevin Donovan

Ray Beckerman, the tireless attorney behind the Recording Industry vs. the People blog, has noted that the Obama Department of Justice has filed paperwork indicating that it may intervene to defend the Constitutionality of the huge statutory copyright damages being tested in the case (Sony BMG Entertainment Media v. Cloud).

Ray writes,

Procedurally, this will test whether President Obama’s announced policies against members of his administration participating in matters in which they were previously involved will be applied, since partners from Jenner and Block — the architects of the RIAA’s mass litigation campaign — now occupy the second and third highest positions in the new administration’s Department of Justice. According to the President’s announced policies, they should be recused from this case.

Substantively, this will also be an interesting test of whether the Obama administration is going to live up to the President’s pledge to stand up for the people, rather than for the big corporations.

Ray encourages everyone to contact President Obama urging him not to intervene in the case. The White House contact information is here and below is the quick note I submitted. Please do the same!

President Obama’s Department of Justice recent filed papers indicating that it may intervene in a current private dispute in Pennsylvania (Sony BMG Entertainment Media vs. Cloud). The case involved the Constitutionality of the statutory damages awarded in copyright infringment cases (which are thousands of times the size of the actual damage).

This development is worrying because two of the top officials in the Department of Justice (Thomas Perrelli and Don Verrilli), were previously employed as private attorneys for Song BMG and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). As you know, President Obama has promised to prohibit members of his administration from participating in matters in which they previously participated. I am writing to discourage the DoJ from intervening in the case and to inquire as to how Mr. Perrelli and Mr. Verrilli will recuse themselves from a decisions involving the RIAA and this particular case.

Thank you and I look forward to your response.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 2:47 pm and is filed under RIAA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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