Readers of this blog know about the Recording Industry Association of America, the RIAA. They are an industry group that represents a lot of copyright owners, a lot of very large and wealthy companies.

The RIAA is very active politically and is one of the loudest/most influential when it comes to lobbying the U.S. government on intellectual property issues. This not only includes domestic issues, like beefing up U.S. copyright law, but also international IP negotiations, including those involving China.

We don’t yet know where the Obama administration is going to go on the international IP front, and whether his policies will differ at all from those of the Bush administration (probably not). One indicator, however, his appointments to the Justice Department, suggests that the administration will have a close relationship with industry groups.

From Wired:

President Barack Obama is tapping another RIAA attorney into the Justice Department.Monday’s naming of Ian Gershengorn, to become the department’s deputy assistant attorney of the Civil Division, comes more than a week after nearly two-dozen public interest groups, trade pacts and library coalitions urged the new president to quit filling his administration with lawyers plucked from the Recording Industry Association of America.

The move makes it five RIAA lawyers Obama has appointed to the Justice Department.

Could this mean a tougher stance internationally? Possibly, although the Bush folks were fairly aggressive, going so far as to file suits with the WTO against China. I believe that the major effect here will be on domestic IP issues, particularly with respect to enforcement of existing law pertaining to online file sharing.

This has got to be killing the file sharing, fair use, and net neutrality Internet activist folks.