Hollywood Takes Its Concerns About Piracy and Taxes to Washington

HOLLYWOOD TAKES ITS CONCERNS ABOUT PIRACY AND TAXES TO WASHINGTON
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Halbfinger]
With a new Congress in session, the heads of the major movie studios converged on the capital Tuesday to pitch their industry in the unaccustomed role of good guy: boon to the trade balance, engine of economic growth, polisher of the nation’s image and employer of a big, uncelebrated, middle-class work force. Cheered by the Democratic takeover, the industry’s leadership hopes to press its agenda of fighting piracy, obtaining new tax advantages and reining in movie and television production from going abroad. So the Motion Picture Association of America put on a daylong show for lawmakers, lobbyists and Capitol Hill aides, armed with some A-list talent and a new study showing that film and TV production accounts for $30 billion in wages, $10 billion in taxes, more than 400,000 jobs and a trade surplus of $9.5 billion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/business/media/07movie.html
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HOLLYWOOD ON THE HILL: TIME TO BURY THE BROADCAST FLAG?
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Gigi Sohn]
[Commentary] PK agrees that copyright is central to the business of movie making, but "what we don't usually agree with Hollywood about is the means by, and the degree to which, government should protect those copyrights." Over the past 5 years, Hollywood and the recording industry have pushed numerous proposals in Congress, and they have tended to fall into several categories: 1) government technology mandates like the broadcast flag; 2) expanding secondary copyright liability (like the “Induce Act”); 3) expanding the permissions culture (e.g., licensing temporary or buffer copies); and 4) increasing punishment for copyright infringement that falls just short of death by hanging. The good news is that most of these efforts have failed. The bad news is that with a Democratic-controlled Congress and one year until a Presidential election, you can bet your mortgage that they will be pushing these, and other initiatives hard in 2007.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/815