Rich Fiscus
5 Feb 2009 14:55
Less than a month into his term as President of the United States, Barrack Obama has offered a second high ranking position in Justice Department to a partner in one of the RIAA's favorite law firms. Last month Tom Pirelli, one of the original architects of the RIAA's lawsuit campaign against file sharing, was nominated to be the top civil rights official in the US Attorney General's office. Now Jenner & Block, the firm where Pirelli worked as Managing Partner, is sending 3 more lawyers to work for the DOJ.
Brian Hauck, who assisted in the infamous Grokster case and became a partner in the firm earlier this year, will be joining the Department of Justice as Counsel for the Associate Attorney General. Jenner & Block associate Ginger Anders will be taking a job as Assistant to the Solicitor General. The Solicitor General is responsible for arguing Supreme Court cases on behalf of the DOJ.
Don Verrilli, who actually argued MGM v Grokster before the Supreme Court on behalf of a group of entertainment companies, has been nominated for the position of Associate Deputy Attorney General. In the Grokster case Verrilli convinced the court that a company may be liable for secondary infringement when they distribute a product which is used to facilitate copyright infringement, even if it has substantial non-infringing uses.
He did not, as many in the media have said, win a judgement against Grokster. He merely convinced the court to vacate the summary judgement a lowr court made in Grokster's favor. The case was later settled out of court.
He was less successful in the Jammie Thomas appeal, when he put the RIAA's "making available" claim to the test. This legal theory says that simply copying music to a folder available to other P2P users without the label's permission is copyright infringement. The judge disagreed and declared a mistrial in the only case the RIAA has actually sent to a jury.