by Enigmax, TorrentFreak
According to a disclosure report, the MPAA spent $400,000 lobbying a wide range of US government departments in the first quarter of 2011 including the FBI, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the Vice President?s Office. Issues on the table include so-called ?rogue sites? including RapidShare, streaming, graduated response (3 strikes) and domain seizures.
In its quest to stamp out piracy, the MPAA continues to pump money into its lobbying activities in the hope of planting the seeds of legislative change.
While the debate over whether corporations should be allowed to lobby crime-fighting organizations such as the police and FBI will rage on, at least there is an enforced level of transparency which allows the public to see where lobbyists are spending their money.
The MPAA have just made their mandatory disclosure for the first quarter of 2011 and it makes interesting reading.
In total the member companies of the MPAA ? Disney, Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Century Fox and Universal ? spent $400,000 in the first three months of the year lobbying influential government departments. These included the office of Vice-President Joe Biden, a valuable MPAA ally in 2010 with his mantra of ?Piracy Is Theft, Clean and Simple.?
In the filing, which covers the period from January 1st to March 31st, several government departments are listed repeatedly including the U.S Senate, House of Representatives, Homeland Security, Dept. of Justice, FBI, ICE, U.S. Copyright Office and U.S. Trade Representative.
On the back of moves to turn the activity into a felony, it?s no surprise that streaming illegal content featured heavily in the MPAA?s 1st quarter lobbying. Considering the huge effort already underway with domain seizures, many of them streaming-related, Operation in Our Sites remained firmly on the agenda.
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