Since January 2009, Elena Kagan was Solicitor General of the United States, the lawyer who represents the Government of the United States before the Supreme Court. Now it appears Elena Kagan may soon be sitting on the other side of the bench. On Monday, President Obama nominated her to replace Justice John Paul Stevens when Justice Stevens retires this summer.
Kagan’s an interesting nominee, because she hasn’t served as a judge. Not all Supreme Court nominees have to be judges, of course, but the last few — all those nominated since 2005 — have been sitting judges.
While conservatives are going nuts trying to figure out if Professor Kagan is gay, what we geeks want to know is whether she’s good for TiVo. Where does she stand on digital rights, fair use, and all the assorted drivel that’s been coming out of the MPAA and RIAA over all these years?
Our government’s relationship with the regressive blowhards (no, I’m not objective on this topic — live with it) at the RIAA and MPAA has been somewhat disappointing.
RIAA and MPAA tactics
While the right might accuse Hollywood and the music industry of leaning left, the movie and music businesses are very old school and very conservative.
They’ve tried — for years — to destroy college careers, ruin grandmothers’ retirements, take food from the mouths of single moms’ babies, and otherwise extract their lump of flesh from fans and customers of music and movies.
Yes, music and movie (and software) piracy is illegal, but the draconian tactics of the MPAA and RIAA have been disturbing and reprehensible. Unfortunately, these tactics have been supported at the legislative level in idiotic laws like the DMCA and even in both the Bush and Obama White Houses, where entertainment industry lawyers seem to be favorite hires.
Update: I got a letter from a reader who didn’t know what these acronyms meant and was quite upset about it. RIAA is Recording Industry of America, MPAA is Motion Picture Association of America, and DMCA is Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Links take you to the appropriate Wikipedia pages.
So, on the surface, you’d think Kagan would make the MPAA and RIAA litigators very happy. But, just maybe, not so much.
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