[opendtv] Wright Issues Call To Copyright Action

Add Bob Wright of NBC to the looooong list of entrenched media moguls 
who want their friends in Congress to protect their dying business 
model. Today Wright called on Congress to help the media moguls  in 
their fight for copyright protection, saying that the Copyright 
Clause (of the Constitution) is under "enormous pressure and requires 
our vigilant attention."

I've got to agree with him. But the question is, where is the 
enormous pressure coming from?

The big media conglomerates have been behind the gutting of the 
intent of the Copyright clause of the constitution, with 11 changes 
in the past century alone.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black...

Regards
Craig



Wright Issues Call To Copyright Action

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/28/2004 11:42:00 AM

Add Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to the freedoms NBC 
Universal Chairman Robert Wright is intent on defending.

In Washington to accept a First Amendment award from the Media 
Institute, Wright, the dean of network chiefs, sent a message to 
legislators, regulators and whoever else was listening that his 
company is ready to lead the fight for copyright protection, saying 
the Copyright Clause is under "enormous pressure and requires our 
vigilant attention."

Pointing to a recording industry "decimated by illegal downloads," he 
said unrestricted digital copying threatened a $1.25 trillion 
business--television, movies, publishing and software--"whose capital 
is composed almost entirely of intellectual property," as well as the 
sectors that support those industries or depend on them.

Together, they comprise 12% of the nation's GNP and 11 million jobs, 
he said. "I don't think the government gets it," he said. But Wright 
wasn't done tallying up the cost.

  "Add in the intellectual property components of other commercial 
activity [the kinds his parent, GE, is involved in]...say, 
pharmaceuticals, engineering, semiconductors, microtechnologies, and 
its entirely likely that more than 20% of our national economy could 
be traced to intellectual property of some sort. This is a very big 
piece of the national pie to have at risk."

Wright also said it was a "terrible mistake" to assume that 
intellectual property violations were a price or the necessary 
byproduct of the transition to digital.

Wright said that technology, not legislation, is the best solution to 
intellectual property theft, but he also said that government needed 
to create "new rules of the road for the digital world...that 
encourage technological progress yet at the same time uphold the 
values that make commerce possible."

His suggestions:

1. Support a house Judiciary Committee package of antipiracy bills  
"currently in limbo".

2. Find some compromise in the Senate Judiciary Committee on the 
so-called induce legislation targeted at peer-to-peer file sharing.

3. Support Attorney General John Ashcroft's proposed intellectual 
property protection recommendations.
 
 
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