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Free culture and lobbyists
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More from Free Culture:
So long as legislation can be bought (albeit indirectly), there will be all the incentive in the world to buy further extensions of copyright. In the lobbying that led to the passage of the Sonny Bono Copy-right Term Extension Act, this "theory" about incentives was proved real. Ten of the thirteen original sponsors of the act in the House received the maximum contribution from Disney's political action committee; in the Senate, eight of the twelve sponsors received contributions. The RIAA and the MPAA are estimated to have spent over $1.5 million lobbying in the 1998 election cycle. They paid out more than $200,000 in campaign contributions. Disney is estimated to have contributed more than $800,000 to reelection campaigns in the 1998 cycle (226).
This is a big problem, and not just with the copyright issue. We shouldn't really blame the companies, what they're doing is legal. But it's a bad system. If legislators have to think about the interests of their favorite lobbyists, then how can we expect laws that make sense for everyone else?
Well, I just finished reading the book on my PDA. I ordered a print copy because Sara wants to read it, too. In the end Lessig finally gives some concrete ideas on where to go from here. I'll post some of those soon, but next up I'll take a look at his thoughts on music file swapping.
4 comments
Yes, but what’s good for big business and lobbyists is usually good for “everyone else.”
I think the time has come that the lobbyists on this side of the Free Culture debate (read: us) need to organize better. The slashdot and blog audience is already saturated with the knowledge, but Joe Average is not. I read a comment on /. about a guy who had a shot at an open mic with Valenti. Supposedly people came up to him after and went though the whole “that’s really interesting, I never thought of it that way” routine. It got me thinking that what EFF, FSF (Lessig in company now!) and similiarly interested communities need to do is agree on the top 5 points or stories to hammer on every time at every chance. Imagine if, rather than meandering, the /. crowd could have representatives at every public DRM/RIAA/MPAA/whatever forum that not only understood the broad issue, but had the goal to make sure the 5 points were brought up everywhere everytime. The more specific platform issues need to be tossed out the window for such an exercise too. 99% of people could care less that DVDs can’t be legally played under linux. MPAA history on the betamax, backup copies, region coding, and Disney reaping the public domain but not giving back have more universal appeal.
I for one, think everytime Valenti or his cohorts speaks in public, his “Boston strangler” quote needs to be thrown back at them. They need to explain why we should believe them now when they’ve already proved their love for untrue hyperbolies so well.
BTW, for those unfamiliar the strangler quote is as follows:
‘I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.’
I agree that we have to be organized. I think the EFF is working on that. I’m just trying to explain this issue to my non-geek readers.
Ya, hope I didn’t come off sounding like I was trying to scold you, not my intent. I’m impressed by the amount of material on the subject you’ve been throwing up on the site.
Getting people to read Lessig, in my opinion, is a good thing.
Oh, and I’m kinda jealous that you managed to read the book on your PDA. I don’t know if I could pull that off.
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