The Justice Department - brought to you by the letters ORLY? The left gets to hate him because he "is the RIAA's favorite lawyer". (Note however, that the RIAA has still never actually won a judgement against a file sharer.) The right gets to hate him because he was the lawyer for Terry Schiavo's husband. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce Thomas J. Perrelli, Obama's selection for associate Attorney General. [more inside]
posted by dejah420 on Jan 10, 2009 - 32 comments

Gonzales pushes plan to criminalize copyright infringement, making it punishable by life imprisonment; to increase wiretaps; and to require Homeland Security to notify the RIAA in certain circumstances. "To meet the global challenges of IP crime." I'd comment on this, but I'm afraid that someone might think I was copying someone else. The Intellectual Property Protection Act (official press release) appeared previously in a speech (2005) and as a draft (2006) - now the Justice department is pushing Congress to bring it forward. [newsfilter]
posted by blacklite on May 15, 2007 - 59 comments

Peer to Peer Politics Here's an idea the RIAA can get behind: Thad Anderson, a second-year student at St. John's School of Law, has launched a peer-to-peer network that allows users to access and share government documents. More than 600 court and government documents, including memos, communications and reports, are available on his OutragedModerates.org site, and can be accessed through the Kazaa, LimeWire and Soulseek P2P networks. Among those documents available are the Abu Ghraib prison scandal memos and the Senate Intelligence Committee report on government intelligence leading up to the Iraq War. The concept of using a P2P network to share embarrassing documents is interesting ... considering some in Congress have proposed an outright ban on the P2P file sharing systems that are widely used to trade music, movies and porn. via Politics1.com
posted by Rastafari on Jul 23, 2004 - 9 comments

Jack Valenti predicts that Congress will require copy-protection controls in nearly all consumer electronic devices and PCs. ... Almost laughable if it weren't for the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA). On hold until Congress is done with spending measures and work related to Sept. 11, it creates new federal felonies, punishable by five years in prison and fines of up to $500,000. Anyone who distributes copyrighted material with "security measures" disabled or has a network-attached computer that disables copy protection would be covered.
posted by magullo on Dec 18, 2001 - 31 comments