Tony West conflict in Jammie Thomas case?
p2pnet news view | RIAA:- “We just thought it interesting to point out that the lead signatory on the Department of Justice brief in Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset, Assistant Attorney General Tony West, has a content industry background, and recently recused himself in the Cartoon Network case,” says Recording Industry vs The People.
Impressive that West ducked out of the Cartoon case with such alacrity.
Does that mean he’ll do the same in Capitol Records v Thomas-Rasset?
But why should he?
After all, a whole passel of former RIAA factotums, with clearly vested interests directly associated with copyright owners, are happily working for Barack Obama.
And no one sees any problems there.
“Advocates of digital sharing have been watching the DOJ with unease since the appointment of several former lawyers for clients who advocate strong intellectual property law enforcement, including Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli,” says MainJustice, which also goes into the fact West, “recused himself from Justice Department decisions in an important copyright case that pits Hollywood studios against the Cablevision cable company”.
Perrelli is an ex-RIAA guy.
Meanwhile, “West, who is a part of a power family in California, has known Obama since 2004, and he was a top fundraiser for Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign,” says WhoRunsGov.
“He was finance co-chair of Obama’s California campaign, where the then-senator raised a record total of $65 million.”
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Recording Industry vs The People – DOJ signatory has previously recused himself in content industry case, August 15, 2009
whole passel of former RIAA factotums – Jenner & Block – running the DoJ?, April 23, 2009
MainJustice – Tony West Recuses Himself in Copyright Case, June 2, 2009
WhoRunsGov – Tony West: Current Position: Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice (since April 2009)
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Shoplift 3 music CDs: $150 fine. P2P download of the same songs: $1.92M. Makes sense to me.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Right. But let’s not confuse shoplifting with file sharing.
Cheers!