Why Elena Kagan might not be so bad for Hollywood
Thu May 13, 2010 @ 11:55AM PSTBy Eriq Gardner
He's been on the front lines in the war against piracy.
Formerly a senior litigator at Jenner & Block, Verrilli argued the industry's position in the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2005 Grokster case, which resulted in a unanimous decision that P2P file-sharing companies could be sued for contributory infringement. Verrilli also represented the recording industry in the first case against an individual file-sharer to reach a verdict -- the trial against Jammie Thomas, who was convicted of sharing songs on Kazaa. Later, Verrilli led the team that represented Viacom in its $1 billion lawsuit against Google for copyright infringement on YouTube (that case is still going strong).
Perhaps the Supreme Court will one day grapple with the UMG/Veoh case or even the Viacom/Google battle. If so, it will matter who that solicitor general is."I think what Grokster and StreamCast are arguing is that this Court's decision in Sony stands for the proposition that their massive actual infringement is -- gets a free pass, a perpetual free pass, so long as they can speculate that there are noninfringing uses out there, such as public-domain uses and authorized uses. We don't think that -- that Sony stands for any such proposition."