p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- US president Obama’s “top antitrust official announced on Monday that the administration would restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share,” says the New York Times.

However, the Big 4 record labels’ use of the country’s legal system to both crush anyone and anything which looks even vaguely like competition, and to brutalise consumers, will continue to be acceptable.

“The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Christine A. Varney, announced the policy reversal in a speech on Monday before the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy research organization,” says story, noting she’ll be saying the same thing today at the United States Chamber of Commerce.

The Bush administration had “lost sight of an ultimate goal of antitrust laws — the protection of consumer welfare,” the story has her saying, going on »»»

The failing of this approach is that it effectively straitjackets antitrust enforcers and courts from redressing monopolistic abuses, thereby allowing all but the most bold and predatory conduct to go unpunished and undeterred.

We must change course and take a new tack.

However, with RIAA henchmen virtually running the Department of Justice,  the chances of Varney’s grand sounding promises being applied to companies trying to compete online with the labels; or, the 40,000 or so innocent men women and children persecuted by Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) and their Recording Industry Association of America receiving just treatment, are zip to zero.

“There is no adequate substitute for a competitive market, particularly during times of economic distress,” the NYT has Varney saying.

“Vigorous antitrust enforcement must play a significant role in the government`s response to economic crises to ensure that markets remain competitive.”

Except where the corporate music industry is concerned, of course.

“It is not unlawful for a company to gain control of a market,” says the story. “It becomes unlawful if the company engages in conduct to exclude or harm competitors with no business justification.

“Conservative antitrust experts, some judges and defendants in such cases have said that the line is too difficult to draw and that it is better to let rivalries play out in the marketplace than in the courts.”

Except where the corporate music industry is concerned, of course.

No need to stay tuned.

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New York Times – Obama Takes Tougher Antitrust Line, May 11, 2009
running the Department of Justice – RIAA help at the DoJ, May 2, 2009