RIAA lobbyist becomes federal judge, rules on file-sharing cases
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
One of the benefits of the common law system is that courts can use previous rulings as a basis to maintain consistency in enforcing the law.
It's unfortunate that until there are well established precedents that a the result of a complaint is a bit of "luck of the draw". One file sharer could end up with a huge judgment while another gets the case thrown out, depending on a judge's understanding, or lack-thereof, of the nature of the offense.
The law is supposed to be impartial. I am all for judges sympathetic to the cause, but I don't want that either. The law must treat both parties big and small equally, and assume that even if its the RIAA that they may have merit in their claims, and vice versa.
So in conclusion, its a tough call here. I would hope this gets much more media attention and either her COI is exposed and she is forced to step down OR she is taken off these sort of cases and her knowledge is put to use elsewhere.
Wendy Gramm (wife of Phil Gramm) approved a judge with the understanding he would never rule in a complainant's favor.
Source? The other judge: http://www.scribd.com/doc/39746954/Judge-Painter-Notice-and-...
Cases involving the RIAA might be a different matter but it's unlikely that there would be any blanket assumption of that sort for any file sharing case.
The thing to remember here is what people, particularly people in the law, are paid to do and what they believe are very different things. It's possible, even likely, that she has no strong opinions on file sharing one way or the other, that she was just doing a job and that she's entirely capable of taking a clear and unbiased view of things.
However will we rid ourselves of their outrageous pro-murder agenda?
The article discusses why, as a technical matter, this judge can choose to hear such cases, but the mere fact that we're discussing this or that there are news articles concerning it, creates an actual appearance of impropriety.
But we'll see how things go. It is possible, after all, that they're not so biased as they appear.
> 66 former SEC employees filed 168 letters with the SEC secretary in 2008 and the first nine months of 2009 disclosing clients or new employers they planned to represent before the agency
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2009/0608/p02s01-usju.h...
For what it is worth, this judge does have an impressive background and is eminently qualified to serve on the federal bench.
All that being said, the issue here is not what the right decision is, but rather how Howel a former RIAA lobbyist and lawmaker could possibly make an unbiased decision.
Frankly, regardless of your stance on the p2p subject, her even being appointed to such a position leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth. If I were in her shoes, I would recognize the ethical dilemma and sit that one out. But to add insult to injury she has chosen to ignore the hand full of precedents set by multiple judges around the country to disallow such abuses inherent in these mass joint filings.
Ironically, numerous people have argues that her past knowledge of law would make her a better judge. So she knows the laws, many of which she helped write; when and where did she learn a damn thing about technology, -I don't know like the fact these law firms are paying for cheap inaccurate methods for infringement detection so they can pad their lawsuits with still more innocent person to shake down. Guilty until proven innocent because the plaintiff told me so.