With the RIAA, MPAA, and the Business Software Alliance getting hammered on Capitol Hill by unfriendly legislators fed by massive campaign donations from the likes of Google, Larry Lessig's PAC and EFF slush funds, it was time for the big content players to lick their wounds and form an alliance.
Okay, so today's launch of the Copyright Alliance didn't exactly happen that way. Instead, said content organizations and other like NAB, Major League Baseball, the NBA, Disney, Sony, Microsoft, Viacom, NewsCorp,, Entertainment Software Association, American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, American Society of Composers, etc. decided that regardless of what may be happening to your business model in the future, when you have a position of strength in DC, you should use it to get even more strength.
Brook Boliek at the Hollywood Reporter notes that there is precedence for the group:
Patrick Ross, executive director of the organization, said that the group helps fill a gap that was left when former MPAA chief Jack Valenti died. Valenti ran a similar group known as the Copyright Alliance that went into eclipse after his death last month.
"That was a creature of Jack Valenti," he said. "With this, we hope to preserve that broad group."
We look forward to doing a 3Qs with Patrick about the Alliance and his new job post PFF. We might ask him if he foresees other technology companies (besides Microsoft) joining the group.
Hello to my friends at 463! Happy to do a 3Q (doesn't sound as tasty as a DQ banana split but that's okay). Just give me a few days to catch my breath after what was an exhausting launch!
Posted by: Patrick | May 18, 2007 at 07:22 AM