The fight against P2P, Obama in the steps of Bush

There's a disappointment on its way for the defenders of P2P in the United States with a new court case going on the other side of the Atlantic. The Obama administration, like that of Bush before it, would seem to be on the side of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the illegal download saga.

This particular case has been going on since 2003 when Joel Tannenbaum, a young man from Massachusetts, was taken to court for having illegally downloaded seven songs. As no agreement was reached, in 2007 he was again accused by Sony BMG, Warner Records, Atlantic, Arista and UMG Recording and today could owe them up to 1 million dollors. Tannenbaum, who holds a Phd in Physics from Harvard, has been defended by law students from the same university and by Charles Nesson, teacher at and founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

The defence is not arguing against the illegality of downloading but on a much more precise point: the dammages claimed by the RIAA in the framework of the 1999 Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act are, according to them, unconstitutional. The department of justice (several members of which have supported the RIAA in the past) which must decide on constitutional questions, is reported not to be of the same opinion and should give its decision around March 30th.