At first blush, a lot of people might find that to be a laughable proposition. But a prominent architect of the Recording Industry Association of America's legal strategy confided to me last week that his colleagues are being "outgunned" in the legislative skirmishing over new copyright laws.
It may seem counterintuitive, but there is some truth to that statement. It explains why Marybeth Peters from the U.S. Copyright Office
That'd be fine by Michael Petricone, vice president for technology policy at the
Predicting what copyright legislation will be enacted in the last days of the 108th Congress is a risky business, but one thing is certain: The list of laws will not include the
The
The trench warfare of copyright politicking tends to be predictable: The Motion Picture Association of America and the record labels staff the fortifications in the east while an assortment of technology companies hunker down in the west. Then they fire volleys back and forth until one side runs out of ammunition.
That's what usually happens. When the Induce Act materialized, however, the tech industry won by calling in the heavy artillery in the form of broader-than-usual alliances. By venturing beyond the usual cluster of Silicon Valley companies, the allies managed to prevent the kind of consensus from forming that has characterized recent copyright laws.
Among the newSarah Deutsch, a vice president at Verizon, said the Induce Act was temporarily defeated because the entertainment industry overreached, not because their lobbyists are losing influence. "It's very hard for me to believe that either the RIAA or MPAA could be outgunned on intellectual-property issues," Deutsch said. "If they're not succeeding, it's because they've drafted an overly broad piece of legislation that's garnered lots of opposition."
During the last decade, the tech industry has grown far more spendthrift in purchasing political favors. In 1992, the computer and Internet industry gave a total of
By the 2004 election cycle, those numbers had almost reached parity--at $21.1 million from tech donors and $23.9 million from the entertainment industry. Looking exclusively at spending by lobbyists, the technology industry already
Yet even fat checks from technology companies can't guarantee victory. The RIAA and MPAA remain more adept at importing celebrities,
The next few days will put that notion to the test. With the Induce Act now moribund, attention is shifting to a package of copyright and peer-to-peer bills that may be glued together and voted on this week as part of a new
As of Friday, the buzz was that the "omnibus" package will be stripped of its most objectionable portions and turned into a "minibus" copyright bill. That might give the entertainment industry some solace. But it's far less than its lobbyists had expected.
Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.
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When I invent something it gets stolen in five minutes.
Protect my intellectual property rights, then I will have more respect for Hollywood and RIAA.