Google Search

Sunday, July 3, 2011

MPAA Anti-Piracy Lobbying Targets FBI, DOJ, ICE, DHS and Biden

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.

Read More


Latest Big Brother/Orwellian
- Cancer Surges In Body Scanner Operators; TSA Launches Cover-Up
- Orwell, eat your heart out: 'TSA denies having required a 95-year-old woman to remove diaper'
- Patriot Act Debate: Is the FBI Collecting Your Phone Data?
- 95-yr-old woman dying of leukemia asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search
- TSA stands by officers after pat-down of elderly woman in Florida
- U.S. Using 'Mystery Shoppers' to Check on Access to Doctors
- Senator Leahy Praises US Gov't Censorship Of Websites As ICE Takes Another Victory Lap
- MPAA, RIAA, Major ISPs Preparing 'Graduated Response' To Piracy

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (found at the U.S. Copyright Office) and other applicable intellectual property laws. It is our policy to remove material from public view that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our members or users.
About Us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill


View the original article here