[opendtv] Wright Issues Call To Copyright Action
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:44:21 -0400
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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