public knowledge
MPAA Defends WH Piracy Discussion
Says critics of the meeting, which brought together leading govt officials and entertainment industry heavyweights with absolutely no presence from public interest groups, are “dead wrong,” and that other groups can have their own meeting if they wish. Earlier this week I mentioned how Vice President Joe Biden convened a piracy summit at the White House with Hollywood CEOs, music industry execs, and legal experts for what was billed as a “first of its kind” meeting to “bring together all the stakeholders to discuss ways to combat piracy in this rapidly changing technological age” ( full guest list ). Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, FBI director Robert Mueller, and the new Anti-Piracy Czar Victoria Espinel joined Sony’s Michael Lynton (the same guy who said last May that he’s a “guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet,” and more recently that CAMs are ruing the movie biz) , Warner Bros.’ Barry Meyer, Viacom’s Philippe Dauman, NBC Universal’s Jeffrey Zucker, Warner Music Group’s Edgar Bronfman, Harper Collins CEO Brian Murray, Universal Music Group’s Zachary Horowitz, MPAA’s Dan Glickman, and the RIAA’s Mitch Bainwol.
Continue reading »Hollywood’s antipiracy charm offensive has FCC in crosshairs
Hollywood’s new campaign for government permission to police the Internet for copyright theft began this month with a segment on, of all places, CBS’s Sixty Minutes . Viewers expecting another of the shows’ self-described “hard-hitting investigative reports” watched a feature called The Movie Pirates, in which a shocked Leslie Stahl disclosed what was apparently a revelation to her—that people go into multiplexes with camcorders, record the movie, then package and sell it on the street. “Mobsters have moved into the piracy business, and it’s bleeding Hollywood to the tune of billions of dollars a year,” Stahl warned her viewers.
Continue reading »Is Comcast and TimeWarner’s "TV Everywhere" TV for everyone?
A great big swath of cable television entertainment will soon be available over the Internet, Time-Warner and Comcast announced this morning. The two companies are working out a set of “broad principles,” they say, that will make it possible for consumers to access their fare “free online and on demand.” Free, of course, if you are a Comcast or Time Warner customer. The “TV everywhere” concept is going to be tested in July, announced Jeff Bewkes, Chairman/CEO of Time Warner and Brian Roberts, Chairman/CEO of Comcast.
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