
Hollywood Kills Republicans' Copyright Reform - mikegirouard
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121117/16492521084/that-was-fast-hollywood-already-browbeat-republicans-into-retracting-report-copyright-reform.shtml
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JumpCrisscross
Contact information for Representative Jim Jordan, Chairman of the RSC:

WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE 1524 Longworth House Office Bldg Washington, D.C. 20515
T (202) 225-2676 F (202) 226-0577

MANSFIELD OFFICE 24 West Third Street, Room 314 Mansfield, OH 44902 T (419)
522-5757 F (419) 525-2805

LIMA OFFICE 3121 West Elm Plaza Lima, OH 45805 T (419) 999-6455 F (419)
999-4238

FINDLAY OFFICE 100 East Main Cross, Suite 101 Findlay, OH 45840 T (419)
423-3210 F (419) 423-3233

This was a daring move, and daring moves aren't smart in politics unless one
knows one has a groundswell of support from underneath.

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waterlesscloud
The memo's author is on Twitter and talking about the subject.

<https://twitter.com/dkhanna11>

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mikegirouard
Original article discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4797036>

Now redacted paper cached here:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i9i2ChY...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i9i2ChYy3QQJ:rsc.jordan.house.gov/uploadedfiles/rsc_policy_brief_
--_three_myths_about_copyright_law_and_where_to_start_to_fix_it_--
_november_16_2012.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

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tzs
The author provides nothing whatsoever to back his claim that Hollywood had
anything to do with this.

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Natsu
A quick 180 like that seems rather odd to me, whatever the reason, and I can't
imagine that Hollywood would have been happy with that document.

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beloch
The article is right about at least one thing: Even without any evidence about
what's going on behind the scenes, most people will assume the RSC came under
pressure from copyright holders and caved almost instantly.

We're left with the impression that either they're truly incompetent or
they're so embarrassed by their actions that they've tried to spin them as
incompetence. Whatever they might have gained with that report is now lost
unless they repost it in short-order and Paul Teller falls on his sword and
resigns.

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noahl
Ars Technica has a source who is supposedly close to the RSC who also says
that lobbyist pressure helped to kill the report:
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/influential-
gop-g...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/influential-gop-group-
releases-shockingly-sensible-copyright-memo/).

They also make some good points about different groups within the GOP arguing
over this.

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gojomo
Note the report has been pulled, supposedly because it didn't get "adequate
review", but not specifically opposed/contradicted.

It could be back in some form, maybe watered-down. And the mere fact that some
portion of the group was ready to advocate this direction suggests the range
of views we'll see from individual legislators will grow. (Some will embrace
this agenda even if the study group itself doesn't.)

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thirdeye462
When did Hollywood become more powerful than a major political party? I wonder
how they managed to persuade them to take it down..

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mjn
I would guess it's not purely Hollywood. There are a lot of copyright-
maximalist companies with ties across the political spectrum, some of whom the
GOP probably is worried about antagonizing, even if Hollywood itself is mostly
irrelevant to them. Republican-aligned examples that come to mind are the
Rupert Murdoch empire (Murdoch is so copyright-maximalist he even thinks
Google News should be considered copyright infringement) and the country music
industry. Disney seems to be donating mainly to Republicans in recent years as
well, though some Googling suggests some of that may relate to local resort-
business politics (they've been lobbying against casinos in Florida).

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ChuckMcM
I'm curious how the feedback mechanism will work. Too bad the EFF and Google
lobbyists didn't "go crazy" and counter the Hollywood ones.

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001sky
Q: _Is this what they call a_ "Hollywood ending" _?_ =) =| =/

