Holy shit. Ryan Schreiber, founder of Pitchfork Media, has been nominated as a finalist for The Time 100 Most Influential People in the World. Alongside Vladimir Putin, Pope Benedict XVI, Robert Mugabe, Barack Obama and Rush Limbaugh sits our very own indie compadre Mr. Schreiber. The article reads:

“His music-culture website Pitchfork is the Pravda of indie rock, steering opinion (and sales) with its infamously forthright record reviews; even its detractors can’t help but look at it three times a day. Among Pitchfork’s early finds: Arcade Fire, Interpol and Relevant Elephant.”

We always knew Wavves and Will Oldham were going to take over the world, we just didn’t know when. So it seems clear now, our cultural coup d’état is occurring with great fury! The zeitgeist of the 2009 will not be remembered for any sort of economic collapse, political strife or military engagements, but for the popularization of music freed from commercial interests and agendas! All Hail Bradford Cox!

But seriously, that’s awesome and great for Pitchfork. Here at the The Tripwire, we encourage write-in entries for our very own Derek Evers.

No matter your race, age, sex, religious affiliation or political views, every American will remember where they were and what they were doing when the now President Barack Obama gave this speech.

We’re not sure if Tom Perrelli helped the RIAA in their case against terminally ill Ciara Sauro, but as co-chair of the law firm Jenner & Block’s entertainment and new media practice he has represented the RIAA in a number of file-sharing cases. Perrelli — who also served the position during the Clinton administration — is a much more interesting choice this decade considering the sue-happy RIAA’s role in file sharing and piracy litigation. Oh, and the entertainment industry’s $7,669,442 in contributions to the Obama campaign only makes it juicier.

As Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski reported last week, among President-elect Barack Obama’s four former Clinton administration officials appointed to leadership posts in the Justice Department last Monday was the favored counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America. Perrelli has represented the RIAA in a number of file-sharing cases, as stated prominently in his official biography: “Mr. Perrelli regularly represents the recording industry in cutting-edge intellectual property, technology, and anti-piracy litigation. He has represented the recording industry in a host of cases arising under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA), as well as in copyright infringement and digital piracy litigation. He has also represented the record industry and recording artists in a series of copyright royalty proceedings before the Copyright Royalty Board.”

To be clear, Perrelli has represented the RIAA in lawsuits against individual file sharers, like one filed in Michigan accuses a university student of distributing “hundreds of sound recordings over his system without the authorization of the copyright owners,” and one against a Princeton University student makes similar arguments. Perrelli and his colleagues also tried to force Charter Communications to give up the names of 93 file-trading subscribers.

A 2004 summary of a Boston lawsuit written by Harvard’s Berkman Center — which opposed the RIAA in this and a current case — quotes Perrelli as telling a federal judge that it would be easy to determine who was using a wireless network to share music. “It is correct that the actual downloader may be someone else in the household,” he said, but any errors can be determined easily after a “modest amount of discovery.”

It might seem as though we’re trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, but as our industry is still searching for ways to monetize and limit the risks of file sharing (ie – keep the promotional value in tact while still trying to keep a dollar value on intellectual property), the stance the Obama administration takes on this matter could be instrumental in dictating the direction the music industry ultimately moves in. As Writes News.com’s Declan McCullagh writes, Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as vice president showed that the presidential hopeful was comfortable with someone with firmly pro-RIAA views. Biden urged the criminal prosecutions of copyright-infringing peer-to-peer users and tried to create a new federal felony involving playing unauthorized music.

If confirmed by the Senate, which is unlikely to pose much of a hurdle, Perrelli would oversee the department’s civil division, the antitrust division, and the civil rights division.

As McCullagh concludes, during [Perrelli's] confirmation hearing, it will be instructive to see if senators ask whether his zealous anti-file sharing advocacy can make him an objective civil servant–especially when these same politicians want the Justice Department to sue peer-to-peer pirates at taxpayer’s expense. (Then again, if that proposal becomes law, Perrelli’s surely the right man for the job.) It will also be instructive to see if this week’s news prompts some of the RIAA’s longtime adversaries to moderate their enthusiasm for Obama’s technology policies.

With no rhyme or reason, our editorial staff chooses the top 10 biggest music-related news stories of 2008. Coming in at #2: The election of Barack Obama.

Why is Barack Obama’s election music-related? Maybe it’s because Will.I.Am conducted the world’s first hologram interview on the night of the election. Or because John Williams and Aretha Franklin will be performing at his inauguration. Or maybe it’s because this could prove to be the most important election in the history of our country. One in which many musicians were excited to discuss.

See Barack Obama’s election victory speech here.

If you’re gonna get inaugurated, you might as well do it right. And President-elect Barack Obama definitely is. He’s got the Queen of Soul, the King of Dramatic Film Music and more than 10,000 U.S. troops to have his back in D.C. on January 20.

It was announced today that Aretha Franklin will sing at the historic event, her first time at an inauguration (though she did sing for President Bill Clinton back in 1993). It’ll also be her chance to return the favor to Obama, who sang a little bit of one of her own tunes to her at a Labor Day rally on the campaign trail in Detroit.

But it won’t just be Aretha making music on January 20 — the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies has also enlisted none other than John Williams — best known for scoring Star Wars and Jaws — to compose a new work to be played by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill. Williams also wrote music for Obama’s election-night rally in Chicago’s Grant Park. We know they won’t be playing “The Imperial March” on inauguration day, but still. If you want to feel like a bad ass to instrumental music there are few other people worth calling.

Right now the expected attendance is around four million, surely the biggest audience yet for the other musical guests of the day — the San Francisco Boys and Girls Choirs.