RIAA man nominated as America’s Top Cop
p2pnet view Politics | RIAA:- In a move with absolutely mind-boggling implications, US president Barak Obama wants to insert yet another hard-core corporate music functionary into the highest levels of the American government.
Donald Verrilli Jr (right) is already one of the many ex- or actual RIAA managers working for the US Department of Justice. In fact, he’s third in command.
Now he’s been nominated as America’s Top Cop.
With entertainment cartel stalwart Hollywood Joe Biden as US vice-president, it couldn’t get any better for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), owned and operated by Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but run by Canadian Edgar Bronfman jr, recently fined $6.8 million for alleged insider trading).
It wouldn’t be bad for Hollywood’s MPAA either.
“Often called ‘the 10th justice,’ the solicitor general is the government’s representative at the Supreme Court, advising the attorney general on legal matters and deciding whether the government will appeal adverse lower court rulings”, says the Washington Post, noting, the job is “one of the most prestigious” in the Washington legal world.
When the scandal of RIAA staffers being named to the DoJ first broke, “I’ve been really interested in the ‘RIAA Takes Over DOJ’ exchanges, in particular those featuring Don Verrelli and Perrelli”, I said in p2pnet, going on >>>
The idea seems to be, basically, they’re clever guys – nice guys, really – who are only doing their jobs.
Where have I seen that excuse before?
Anyway, I thought others following the thread might be interested in two clips from a story I posted little while ago. They feature two young women whose studies have been disrupted by the attentions of the RIAA, its subpoenas and its settlement centre(s).
The first is about Brittany Kruger, whom I cited in an earlier … post. She said, “I have problems sleeping, my hair is falling out in ungodly amounts, I’m having a hard time concentrating in class, but most of all I hate the fact that I’ve pulled my entire family into this,” and, “Right now it doesn’t seem like this is ever going to end, I’m just now entering the tunnel and the light is miles away.”
The second is on a student who said she was going to kill herself. This was, “because she’d heard from someone at an (the?) RIAA extortion settlement centre categorically promising her she’d be taken to court unless she came up with more than $9,000 to buy the RIAA off,” I wrote, going on, “She said she was already up to her neck in debt because of school loans and had absolutely no way of finding that kind of money, or anything like it, that she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t study, couldn’t live a normal life because of the worry.”
Further down, I posted, “I eventually had a long telephone conversation with girl I mentioned earlier, the one who was threatening to kill herself, and she said she, too, would write something about her experiences. But she changed her mind after her parents agreed to bail her out. She wouldn’t tell me the price, but she said she now hoped she’d be able to get back to her studies and on with her life. I hope she does. But I have to say her escape is at the expense of providing the RIAA with another statistic, and another reason to keep on with their brutal sue ‘em all campaign.”
As I said on my … post on Brittany, it’s interesting how … threads on profits, licensing formulas, costings, and so on, always elicit lots of learned responses, but mention of the people in the centre of it all draws nothing but cold silence.
It’s like they don’t even exist.
Meanwhile, Verrilli still has to be confirmed by the senate.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
third in command – Jenner & Block – running the DoJ?, April 26, 2009
insider trading – WMG’s Edgar Bronfman jr fined $6.8 million, January 21, 2011
Washington Post – Obama chooses solicitor general, January 25, 2011
p2pnet – ‘Dear Jon: I am still alive … ‘, August 2, 2010
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan
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