Slashdot Mirror

Rep. Lofgren does have an varied list of top contributors -- perhaps most relevant would be the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

If you check the list of Top Industries that support Zoe Lofgren with money, the #1 item is... "Computer Equipment & Services", followed by "Lawyers/Law Firms". "TV/Movies/Music" pays her some (not much for the 2002 cycle, only $7.7K), but quite a bit less (about 10:1 for combined computer/law vs TV/movies/music).

That ratio would be rather consistent with this stance, although it's not indicative of a quid-pro-quo as people are going to give money mostly to reps who vote favorably if there's a danger of getting somebody who would vote the other way.

Rep. Lofgren does have an varied list of top contributors -- perhaps most relevant would be the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

If you check the list of Top Industries that support Zoe Lofgren with money, the #1 item is... "Computer Equipment & Services", followed by "Lawyers/Law Firms". "TV/Movies/Music" pays her some (not much for the 2002 cycle, only $7.7K), but quite a bit less (about 10:1 for combined computer/law vs TV/movies/music).

That ratio would be rather consistent with this stance, although it's not indicative of a quid-pro-quo as people are going to give money mostly to reps who vote favorably if there's a danger of getting somebody who would vote the other way.

From the TV/Movies/Music industry.

Yeah baby, our boy has sucked on the Entertainment tit for ..

Ready for this?

$1 9 4 , 6 4 1

He is going to lie at every chance possible because like ALL politicians, Republican or Democrat, he walks whatever line pays him money.

There are no exceptions, Berman is quite literally full of shit and acting only in the best interest of his masters.

Reported contributions list
Top 3 Industries (PACs and Individuals):
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $1,463,550
2 Communications & Electronics $698,958
PAC Contributors:
Walt Disney Co $6,000
AOL Time Warner $5,083
National Assn of Broadcasters $5,000
Comcast Corp $2,500
Motion Picture Assn of America $3,000
ASCAP $1,000
Cablevision Systems $1,000
Charter Communications $1,000
Sony Pictures Entertainment $1,000
Universal Studios $1,000
Viacom Inc $2,000
3 Financial & Investment $404,349

Additional PAC contributions here.

Personal Finances are here.

Others who sit on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

If you think he's bad, check out Boxer.

Reported contributions list
Top 3 Industries (PACs and Individuals):
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $1,463,550
2 Communications & Electronics $698,958
PAC Contributors:
Walt Disney Co $6,000
AOL Time Warner $5,083
National Assn of Broadcasters $5,000
Comcast Corp $2,500
Motion Picture Assn of America $3,000
ASCAP $1,000
Cablevision Systems $1,000
Charter Communications $1,000
Sony Pictures Entertainment $1,000
Universal Studios $1,000
Viacom Inc $2,000
3 Financial & Investment $404,349

Additional PAC contributions here.

Personal Finances are here.

Others who sit on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

If you think he's bad, check out Boxer.

Reported contributions list
Top 3 Industries (PACs and Individuals):
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $1,463,550
2 Communications & Electronics $698,958
PAC Contributors:
Walt Disney Co $6,000
AOL Time Warner $5,083
National Assn of Broadcasters $5,000
Comcast Corp $2,500
Motion Picture Assn of America $3,000
ASCAP $1,000
Cablevision Systems $1,000
Charter Communications $1,000
Sony Pictures Entertainment $1,000
Universal Studios $1,000
Viacom Inc $2,000
3 Financial & Investment $404,349

Additional PAC contributions here.

Personal Finances are here.

Others who sit on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

If you think he's bad, check out Boxer.

Reported contributions list
Top 3 Industries (PACs and Individuals):
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $1,463,550
2 Communications & Electronics $698,958
PAC Contributors:
Walt Disney Co $6,000
AOL Time Warner $5,083
National Assn of Broadcasters $5,000
Comcast Corp $2,500
Motion Picture Assn of America $3,000
ASCAP $1,000
Cablevision Systems $1,000
Charter Communications $1,000
Sony Pictures Entertainment $1,000
Universal Studios $1,000
Viacom Inc $2,000
3 Financial & Investment $404,349

Additional PAC contributions here.

Personal Finances are here.

Others who sit on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

If you think he's bad, check out Boxer.

According to testimony MediaDefender actually connects to your shared folder as if it was another "pirate" and downloads the files at a really slow rate tieing up all of the upload availablity.

From the outset it seemed the congresscritters had made up its mind before the hearing ever started. One thing that Ms Rosen kept saying was that they aren't hacking, but only accessing the hard drive that is freely available.

Gigi Sohn handled herself pretty well considering ever congresscritter kept trying to trip her up and admit that she supported "illegal music theft". She stuck her ground, and came off pretty well.

Maybe after the capmiagn reform laws become law after this years elections, we won't have certain of the cogresscritters out "whoring for $$$$", to the highest bidder. Check out yours at Opensecrets.org

I'm no fan of Republicans, but take a look at where the money is going. So far this election season, the TV/Movies/Music industry has given 77% of their campaign contributions to Democrats.

On the other hand, while they may give more money to Democrats, they still give money to almost as many Republicans (just in smaller amounts). 411 out of our 535 congresscritter have their hands in the media industry's pockets.

I'm no fan of Republicans, but take a look at where the money is going. So far this election season, the TV/Movies/Music industry has given 77% of their campaign contributions to Democrats.

On the other hand, while they may give more money to Democrats, they still give money to almost as many Republicans (just in smaller amounts). 411 out of our 535 congresscritter have their hands in the media industry's pockets.

We live in a democratic system, ...

This is not Democracy .

Well, the TV/Movies/Music industry is only tenth on her contribution list, but the tech industry doesn't even register.

If you want a public, free, and open wireless network, we'll have to bribe politicians. Nokia and the rest already are. If they want warchalkers branded as terrorists, the way things are now, they'll be rounded up right after the pirates (aye, matey) who help Binladen by downloading music without paying CEOs the intellectual property tax.

Can't we build our own network, and leave Nokia and the rest out of it? Maybe we can have some kind of hardware GPL, you get free access to the network as long as you allow others free access as well.

Real Networks, Microsoft, and Apple have provided video players with built-in Digital Rights Management for years, but Hollywood doesn't seem to have any interest in providing movies in those formats. As of July 29 this year, Hollywood has donated over $25 million to congresscritters. It would cost less than that to develop their own DRM protected software to download and play encrypted DVD images. If Hollywood won't sell movies on the internet protected with current DRM schemes, they have no plans to ever release movies on the internet.

I dunno. It only takes about $280,000 to buy a senator.

-Puk

I agree that legislating interoperability would go a long way to fixing the problem. How does anyone propose to get legislation to this effect?

The Internet/Computing industry gave $16,138,743 in the 2002 election cycle. If there is one thing that these people understand, it's Return On Investment.

This is an open standard. It's just patented. Patents expire.

Not if Fraunhofer and the pharmaceutical companies manage to stuff a few thousand dollars down a few senators' pants and get some sort of "Cherilyn Lapierre Patent Term Extension Act" passed. Hell, if it worked for Sonny...

I'll publish them at least in MP3 format, and maybe Ogg if I can get a good encoder.

OggDropXPd.

I have a feeling that if I publish Ogg, it's not going to get downloaded very much

As !Xabbu mentioned, Winamp 2.80 and later support Ogg out of the box.

Brewster Kahle, who has created a large Internet archive he calls the Wayback Machine, which contains several times the amount of information in the Library of Congress, said that the number of questionable sites is beside the point so long as search engines do their job.

"We don't worry about how many pages that I don't care about are in the Internet archive," he said. "What you do care about is, `Does it have the pages that I want?' "

Ehem, I point y'all to here. They're the definitive source for easy to acccess campaign finance data. I work for campaigns (Democratic, thank you very much) and am in my office right now. When I can't find anything on GeekPAC or it's true name, American Open Technology whatever, I start to worry. Every other PAC, contributor, candidate, etc., no matter how small or how few votes or dollars they got, is in there. I would go as far to check the FEC, but what's the point? If GeekPAC hasn't set itself up as a legitimate PAC, then your money is just going down the drain b/c they'll be breaking the law. If they aren't filing their periodic disclosure forms, they aren't going to be making any contributions, and they aren't going to be in business.

Sometimes I've avoided voting for a candidate or a ballot initiative because of my ignorance of the issues. But it doesn't take full-time research to find out where most candidates stand. Your local governments probably put out an election guide, and that's a great place to start. Also, check your local deadtree newspapers in the weeks prior to an election. If you're not willing to subscribe, just go to a local library and ask a librarian if you need help. An hour in the periodicals room should give some insight into the issues and candidates.

For non-partisan info on the web see Project Vote Smart or The League of Women Voters. You may find links to local chapters here. And if you have an active local chapter, they almost certainly put out a voter's guide and may even sponsor debates.

If you want to surf some more, try starting with Google's Directory.

Finally, to follow the money check out Open Secrets.

That was for the 2000 election when things were up in the air as to who would win.

Things have changed Since Ashcroft tried to hand the remaining 5% of the market to Gates.

That's an agreement between two parties who (should, if they are responsible) know exactly what they're getting into, and do it willingly.

A legal tranfer of rights is not theft.

Except when the artist has no choice between the evils of the powerful record company A and the evils of the powerful record companies B through H. Oh, by the way, companies A through H have formed an industry group called the RIAA to protect the profits of it's members, not necessarily those of the artists or listeners.

When companies take too much from the people. by keeping the price of a CD artificially inflated. Would that not classify as theft? Of course it is, and there are laws -- antitrust laws -- that were created to protect the public for that specific reason.

Some could say that the RIAA has taken away representative democracy by buying politicians who have taken away freedoms that we used to have. Wouldn't that be considered theft?

Diane Feinstein
Howard Berman

And if you want to know what's really scary? Look at this and this

That's an agreement between two parties who (should, if they are responsible) know exactly what they're getting into, and do it willingly.

A legal tranfer of rights is not theft.

Except when the artist has no choice between the evils of the powerful record company A and the evils of the powerful record companies B through H. Oh, by the way, companies A through H have formed an industry group called the RIAA to protect the profits of it's members, not necessarily those of the artists or listeners.

When companies take too much from the people. by keeping the price of a CD artificially inflated. Would that not classify as theft? Of course it is, and there are laws -- antitrust laws -- that were created to protect the public for that specific reason.

Some could say that the RIAA has taken away representative democracy by buying politicians who have taken away freedoms that we used to have. Wouldn't that be considered theft?

Diane Feinstein
Howard Berman

And if you want to know what's really scary? Look at this and this

That's an agreement between two parties who (should, if they are responsible) know exactly what they're getting into, and do it willingly.

A legal tranfer of rights is not theft.

Except when the artist has no choice between the evils of the powerful record company A and the evils of the powerful record companies B through H. Oh, by the way, companies A through H have formed an industry group called the RIAA to protect the profits of it's members, not necessarily those of the artists or listeners.

When companies take too much from the people. by keeping the price of a CD artificially inflated. Would that not classify as theft? Of course it is, and there are laws -- antitrust laws -- that were created to protect the public for that specific reason.

Some could say that the RIAA has taken away representative democracy by buying politicians who have taken away freedoms that we used to have. Wouldn't that be considered theft?

Diane Feinstein
Howard Berman

And if you want to know what's really scary? Look at this and this

That's an agreement between two parties who (should, if they are responsible) know exactly what they're getting into, and do it willingly.

A legal tranfer of rights is not theft.

Except when the artist has no choice between the evils of the powerful record company A and the evils of the powerful record companies B through H. Oh, by the way, companies A through H have formed an industry group called the RIAA to protect the profits of it's members, not necessarily those of the artists or listeners.

When companies take too much from the people. by keeping the price of a CD artificially inflated. Would that not classify as theft? Of course it is, and there are laws -- antitrust laws -- that were created to protect the public for that specific reason.

Some could say that the RIAA has taken away representative democracy by buying politicians who have taken away freedoms that we used to have. Wouldn't that be considered theft?

Diane Feinstein
Howard Berman

And if you want to know what's really scary? Look at this and this

See below. Here's the profile of a typical legistator who called for this. While it's universally conceded that politicians are 0wned, one would think that Senator Feinstein would be embarrassed at coming so cheap.

To put this into perspective, if 1,000 geeks cared to come up with $500 each and contribute it under the name of a single organization, Feinstein would be a fanatic P2P advocate, even if she can't spell P2P.

OpenSecrets campaign finance disclosures

Dianne Feinstein (D)*
1. Lawyers/Law Firms $485,118
2. Women's Issues $294,532
3. Retired (AARP,etc) $286,413
4. TV/Movies/Music $216,138
5. Real Estate $203,346
6. Securities & Investment $142,135
7. Health Professionals $112,494
8. Computer Equipment & Services $107,866

individual contributions
Global Crossing $24,000
Walt Disney Co $22,750
William Morris Agency $21,000
Time Warner $16,800
Vivendi Universal $15,000 Any questions?

I'd hate to see all the entertainment industry waste all that money on bribing so many of our nation's lawmakers without anything to show for it.

Seriously folks, when are we as a nation going to say enough is enough with this legal corporate bribery? Can anyone please explain the practical difference between bribery and massive "donations" ? I'm reminded of a remark made by George Carlin, who said "this country was bought and sold years ago". Was he right?

I'd hate to see all the entertainment industry waste all that money on bribing so many of our nation's lawmakers without anything to show for it.

Seriously folks, when are we as a nation going to say enough is enough with this legal corporate bribery? Can anyone please explain the practical difference between bribery and massive "donations" ? I'm reminded of a remark made by George Carlin, who said "this country was bought and sold years ago". Was he right?

I'd hate to see all the entertainment industry waste all that money on bribing so many of our nation's lawmakers without anything to show for it.

Seriously folks, when are we as a nation going to say enough is enough with this legal corporate bribery? Can anyone please explain the practical difference between bribery and massive "donations" ? I'm reminded of a remark made by George Carlin, who said "this country was bought and sold years ago". Was he right?

I'd hate to see all the entertainment industry waste all that money on bribing so many of our nation's lawmakers without anything to show for it.

Seriously folks, when are we as a nation going to say enough is enough with this legal corporate bribery? Can anyone please explain the practical difference between bribery and massive "donations" ? I'm reminded of a remark made by George Carlin, who said "this country was bought and sold years ago". Was he right?

the list of companies providing such discounted travel reads almost identical to the list of major contributors to Bush's presidential campaign. Enron Corp, whose employees gave more than $118,000 to Bush, was reimbursed almost $60,000 for 14 flights during the campaign, including two flights reported after Election Day.

You can find the contributions at OpenSecrets.

You will discover that your favorite politicians are not only 4 sale, but that you can buy them for fire-sale prices.

I have to admit, I was a bit shocked at first when I looked at Sen. Biden's profile on OpenSecrets. I was fully expecting him to be in the pocket of the movie industry, but that's at piddly #12 on his list of 2002 supporters. So, who made #1 on the contributions list? It certainly wasn't who I was expecting.

Lawyers.

Hmmm....

I have to admit, I was a bit shocked at first when I looked at Sen. Biden's profile on OpenSecrets. I was fully expecting him to be in the pocket of the movie industry, but that's at piddly #12 on his list of 2002 supporters. So, who made #1 on the contributions list? It certainly wasn't who I was expecting.

Lawyers.

Hmmm....

I looked at the alleged bribe link that appeared on The Register's article.

Then I browsed around that site.

I find it strange that they track contributions from Pro Israel Organisations" but not from "Pro Palesinian Organisations".

I looked at the alleged bribe link that appeared on The Register's article.

Then I browsed around that site.

I find it strange that they track contributions from Pro Israel Organisations" but not from "Pro Palesinian Organisations".

The top industries supporting Howard L. Berman are:
1 TV/Movies/Music $186,891
2 Lawyers/Law Firms $97,100

The top industries supporting Howard Coble are:
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $35,515
2 TV/Movies/Music $33,483

There is nothing these two "gentlemen" would not to to keep sucking at the media industry tit. Even to the degree of drafting such nonsensical law that clearly violates the "equal treament" under privilege or immunity of the 14th Amendment by immunizing corporations against felonious activities conducted by them against citizens without considering due process.

The top industries supporting Howard L. Berman are:
1 TV/Movies/Music $186,891
2 Lawyers/Law Firms $97,100

The top industries supporting Howard Coble are:
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $35,515
2 TV/Movies/Music $33,483

There is nothing these two "gentlemen" would not to to keep sucking at the media industry tit. Even to the degree of drafting such nonsensical law that clearly violates the "equal treament" under privilege or immunity of the 14th Amendment by immunizing corporations against felonious activities conducted by them against citizens without considering due process.

Howard Berman's top contributers to 2002 campaign

Walt Disney Co $31,000
AOL Time Warner $28,050
Vivendi Universal $27,591
Viacom Inc $13,000
News Corp $11,750
American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $10,000
DreamWorks SKG $10,000
William Morris Agency $10,000
Gang, Tyre et al $7,000
Sony Corp of America $7,000

By industry, the TV/Movies/Music industry contributed $186,891.

Howard Coble

Assn of Trial Lawyers of America $10,000
Winston & Strawn $5,515
Recording Industry Assn of America $5,374
National Assn of Broadcasters $5,360
ASCAP $5,000
National Assn of Realtors $5,000
Teamsters Union $5,000
Wal-Mart Stores $5,000
GlaxoSmithKline $4,999
National Cable Television Assn $4,999

Source Opensecrets.org

Does anyone really believe campaign finance reform will solve this problem?

Here is a list of top contributors to Berman.

$187000 is all it took to get this bill introduced?
Why haven't geek-friendly organizations been able to buy their own congresspeople - or have they, and in that case, which ones?

It's easy to find out who is supporting your favorite congressman.
You can look it up here.

Note: many of the contributions of the entertainment organizations are done through law firms and other organizations. "Soft money" is covered.

If you're going to do a score card, see if you can find a smart political reporter from a major newspaper or other serious political type to ferret out ALL the money.

The "rep from TX" is Lamar Smith (R-TX) from San Antonio. yourcongress.com and opensecrets.org are good starting points if you are willing to actually do something to stop these ridiculous laws.

A great resource for finding donors is www.opensecrets.org. You can find out who gave the most money to Sen. Hollings over the past 5 years (surprise - Disney is 16th!), or which members of Congress received the most from the tv/movies/music industries (Howard Berman, D-CA is number one), and lots of other goodies like this. It's an amazing collection of information.

A great resource for finding donors is www.opensecrets.org. You can find out who gave the most money to Sen. Hollings over the past 5 years (surprise - Disney is 16th!), or which members of Congress received the most from the tv/movies/music industries (Howard Berman, D-CA is number one), and lots of other goodies like this. It's an amazing collection of information.

A great resource for finding donors is www.opensecrets.org. You can find out who gave the most money to Sen. Hollings over the past 5 years (surprise - Disney is 16th!), or which members of Congress received the most from the tv/movies/music industries (Howard Berman, D-CA is number one), and lots of other goodies like this. It's an amazing collection of information.

No, all this will do is isolate the computing world in American from the rest of the world.

Afterall, folks like Monti in European government are a lot harder to please than the US government. Europe won't toe the line with this American-based dominating technology (well, except maybe the UK.

Unless of course the US starts bombing European countries saying our citizens are living in an undemocratic civilization where American companies don't have the freedom to dominate^h^h^hinnovate. :) Seriously, the rest of the world won't buy it.

Speaking of which...why hasn't there been a slashdot review of Lilo and Stitch?

Three reasons.

For one thing, "Lilo" is taken. Not only is it the name of the old Linux bootloader (before distributions started using GRUB instead), but wasn't "Leeloo" (probably the same underlying name as "Lilo") a character in The Fifth Element, played by Ms. Jovovich?

For another thing, Lilo and Stitch is released under the Disney label. The Walt Disney Company (parent of Disney, Touchstone, and Miramax) was the biggest corporate sponsor of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and one of the biggest proponents of the DMCA's circumvention ban (among movie studios, only Time Warner gave the U.S. Congress more money in 1998).

Finally, because you haven't submitted your review for consideration by the Slashdot editors.

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/indus.asp?C ID=N00008094&cycle=2002

Dude, let's just be blunt:

As can be expected, the RIAA is in favor of the proposed legislation.

Should read,
As can be expected, the RIAA purchased the proposed legislation.

Am I just spouting conspiracy / anti-government / cynical crap? No.

I was actually guessing / making a joke... then I looked it up. :-(