MPAA Calls for Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Meet

Motion Picture Association of America Chairman Chris Dodd said he would welcome a summit meeting between Internet companies and content companies, perhaps convened by the White House, that could lead to a compromise on a federal law to control foreign online piracy.

Looming Jan 24 is a cloture vote scheduled in the Senate, which appears to promise the death of the legislation in its current form. “The perfect place to do it is a block away from here,” said Dodd, who pointed from his office on I Street toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the startlingly speedy collapse of the antipiracy campaign by some of Washington’s savviest players — not just the motion picture association, but also the United States Chamber of Commerce and the Recording Industry Association of America — signaled deep changes in antipiracy lobbying in the future. By Dodd’s account, no Washington player can safely assume that a well-wired, heavily financed legislative program is safe from a sudden burst of Web-driven populism.