Hollywood and whine: why are democrats helping the entertainment industry stamp out new technologies that fuel economic growth?
Washington Monthly › Vol. 35 Nbr. 1, January 2003
Linked as:
Extract
Hollywood and whine: why are democrats helping the entertainment industry stamp out new technologies that fuel economic growth?
IT'S A POLITICAL TALE AS OLD AS CAPITOL Hill: A lumbering industry selects a certain corporate-friendly party to be its Beltway patsy. In exchange for the requisite campaign donations and other perks, members of said party use their clout to push through the industry's legislative agenda--an agenda that would rip off consumers and harm the overall economy but enrich the corporate string-pullers immensely. Pundits and public-interest types grumble over the bald-faced cronyism, but as long as the money keeps flowing, the beneficiaries don't seem to care a whit.
Sounds like the buddy-buddy relationship between Republicans and the energy industry, right? The characters cited in the above scenario, however, are the Democrats and Hollywood, one of Washington's coziest couples. Fort years, Hollywood has poured money into the Democrats' campaign coffers and been rewarded with indispensable assistance on the industry's crusade of the moment--squelching new technologies that allow the dissemination of digital content in ways Hollywood can't control. One bill being hatched by Democrats would allow media companies to hack into networks like KaZaA, a file-sharing service which has replaced Napster as the most popular MP3...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
