Copyright For Sale: What the Sony Docs Say About MPAA Buying Political Influence

An anonymous reader writes: The linkage between political funding and the major copyright lobby groups is not a new issue as for years there have been stories about how groups like the MPAA and RIAA fund politicians that advance their interests. Michael Geist digs into the Sony document leak to see how the MPAA coordinates widespread buying of politicians with political funding campaigns led by former Senator Christopher Dodd to federal and state politicians. The campaigns include efforts to circumvent donation limits by encouraging executives to spend thousands on influential politicians, leading to meetings with Barack Obama, the head of the USTR and world leaders.

Comments

We can learn from this

[RoknrolZombie]

Seems to me like this is a pretty solid way to identify most of what's wrong with our political structure so that we can fix it.

Unfortunately it will probably just be used as a "how to" manual.

Re:We can learn from this

[gstoddart]

Yup, essentially the politicians have set it up so they can be openly bribed/bought off to give corporations more consideration than the rest of us.

If this doesn't show how corrupt and broken the system is, I have no idea what will.

There's no way the politicians will change the law so they can no longer get paid ... it's simply too lucrative.

They're all crooks, and should be thrown in jail.

Re:We can learn from this

[geogob]

People like the folks at MPAA do not need a "how to" manual. That's what they do as a business. They are like leeches which are perfectly adapted to the political ecosystem. The only hope you can have, is to have judicial system independent enough to tackle the issue.

I've read here on /. a lot of critique to the leaking of the Sony dataset and how it was further spread by Wikileak. Taken aside the peculiar personalities linked to Wikileaks and problems one might have with them, THIS is exactly why it is good to have this information out in the world. I can only hope judicial instances will pick up this dataset and start their own investigations, for the little it may help.

It will only help a little, because those leeches are also expert in finding loopholes through regulations. Remember, this is what they do... which is quite ironic for anti-piracy lobbyists. Some countries/regions are fast in finding and closing loopholes, but not in the reign of the MPAA and especially not when it is linked to political corruption / financing of political parties and/or figures.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we not say Sony (or other corporations) did it, but actually name those individuals orchestrating these bribes and those cutting the checks?

Re:We can learn from this

[nine-times]

But is the problem that we can't identify what's wrong, or is the problem that we're powerless to do anything about it?

My understanding is that you could find plenty of people with enough expertise to lay out exactly what the problem is, but the problem is essentially, "There are a bunch of legal loopholes that effectively make bribery legal, thereby handing control of our government over to those who can pay the most."

You might ask, "Well if we know what the problem is, we can fix it! Why not close the loopholes?" The fundamental problem there is that the people in position to close the loopholes are the ones receiving the bribes, and they want the bribes to keep coming. The only thing that could get them to change the law would be if their corporate overlords, i.e. those providing the bribes, bribed them to make it illegal. The problem with that is that the corporate overlords also want the bribes to remain legal, so that they can influence public officials.

Finally, you might say, "Well why not just vote those bribe-takers out of office?" The problem there is that the bribes are used to buy elections. Without that money, you can't run ads, you can't get on TV, and you can't even participate in the public debate.

It's just a catch-22 situation. The only solution would be for voters to somehow elect someone who they've never heard of, who basically can't campaign, and just hope that that new elected official is both honest and effective. And then that has to happen in a couple hundred other elections at roughly the same time.

Re:We can learn from this

[Tablizer]

They're all crooks, and should be thrown in jail.

They are just playing by the rules of the system, as is. Not sure you can fault them for that. We are mostly a plutocracy. If you don't want the players to play by the rules, then end the damned plutocracy.

Unfortunately, they've used their well-honed corporate marketing skills to dupe most of the population into thinking the fat cat plutocrats are blessed by God to be fat cat plutocrats. Thus, the sheep population won't vote to fix it. I'm not suggesting at all we make a 180-degree U-turn the other way, but Karl Marx did warn about this slippery slope: the rich are getting richer, and thus have more money to buy laws that keep allowing them to get yet richer to buy even more laws...

Slippery slope claims are usually considered a fallacy in debates, but for the past 35 years we've been "sloping" that way. Slippery slopes are generally considered a fallacy if they haven't actually happened yet, but they are no longer a fallacy if they're actually happening or have happened.

Re:We can learn from this

[poetmatt]

Considering they used their money to make this into the system, I see absolutely no reason to simply say "it's okay, they're using the rules they created".

That's 100% wrong and dishonest.

Re:We can learn from this

[gstoddart]

They are just playing by the rules of the system, as is. Not sure you can fault them for that.

Oh, horseshit.

Corporations bought and fucking paid for those rules. That doesn't make them good.

It means the politicians have been corrupt long enough that idiots think that a broken and corrupt system is just "the rules of the system".

Eat the rich, and shoot the politicians if this is the fucking status quo.

Re:We can learn from this

[Jason Levine]

Finally, you might say, "Well why not just vote those bribe-takers out of office?" The problem there is that the bribes are used to buy elections. Without that money, you can't run ads, you can't get on TV, and you can't even participate in the public debate.

Not only that, but those in power can change the district lines to make sure they remain in power. Congressional re-election rates are over 80 percent. You have to go back to 1980 for the lowest rate and that was 55% in the Senate. So even at the worst, a Congressman had a better-than-a-coin-flip chance of staying in office. In some elections, you would have better luck betting on 4 numbers on a Roulette wheel than you would betting against a random incumbent.

Re:We can learn from this

[hey!]

And what's more trying to restrict the flow of money has the perverse but economically predictable effect of making influence cheap to buy. The typical congressman spends five hours a day in fundraising related activities, and two hours a day doing constituent services. That alone should tell you who they really work for.

If you banned political contributions outright, then congressmen would just spend *more* time trying to drum up support for people to spend on their behalf. There's really only one way to eliminate the corrupting influence of money in politics: public financing. I don't particularly like that option, but it's the only one that is guaranteed to work, the only way to restore the status quo ante, before the rise of mass media campaigning, where elections were entirely a matter between the politicians running and the voters.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

And look how the Republicans fight against the Democrats. That must mean one of them is corrupt and the other is not!

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always said we should make our politicians wear their sponsors' logos on their suits, just like the nascar drivers.

Re:We can learn from this

[DrJimbo]

Great post! But I take exception to this statement especially in the current context where people think it is wrong that we have the best government money can buy:

You have to accept that we are a competitive species, not a collaborative one. We may do things together, but only in the perspective of self-fulfillment. It's as if individual growth is hard-coded in our genes. Maybe not you, certainly not me, but in average, yes.

I agree that in general we all want to improve our lot in life. I disagree that it is built into our genes for us to screw over our fellow humans in the process. It has been documented in books such as Mutual Aid: a factor of Evolution that cooperation within a species is a much more effective (and prevalent) strategy than competition within a species.

In addition, even if some mild forms of competition within a species are beneficial, I totally reject the carte-blanche you offer to even the most sadistic and psychopathic behavior in the name of "my genes made me do it".

If your assumption that we are for the most part all psychopaths is true then we as a species are completely and totally fucked. The overwhelming evidence is the vast majority of humans are not psychopaths. The problem is that almost literally by hook and by crook we have developed a system where psychopaths tend to rise to positions of leadership in corporations and they have used their power to almost totally subvert the government to their antisocial whims.

If you look up the definition of "psychopath":

a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and disinhibited or bold behavior.

you will see that what you described is psychopathic behavior. While this aberration may have a genetic component, that doesn't make it right; it doesn't mean it is widespread; and it certainly doesn't mean we should develop a system that puts psychopaths in positions of great power.

Any law is for sale

[Opportunist]

Politicians are dependent on campaign contributions. And as long as they are, they will be little more than corporate whores.

I think it's time to get a crowdfunding scheme going. Maybe we can at least buy one congressman who's working for "the people".

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[gstoddart]

Is it a democracy when the outcomes are bought by corporate interests by giving money to greedy politicians to influence the outcomes?

I think not.

This is just a corrupt system masquerading as something else.

This is how banana republics operate, but that seems to be where we're going.

Those skeletons don't like daylight

[jandrese]

I guess we know why Wikileaks is under the smear campaign now. These sort of leaks are bound to make some people uncomfortable, although I doubt they will do much in the grand scheme of things. The people who care already suspected, and the people who don't care still don't care. Having some hard evidence to throw in the face of the naysayers helps, but is not likely to change much since they were mostly shills. Not many regular people believe that big corporations are not complicit with political corruption. They just don't know what they can do to fix it, other than hoping that other people elect better politicians (not theirs though, because they love their Congressman).

Root Cause

[Tokolosh]

The problem is not that corporations are buying politicians for favors, or that corporations are people, or that politicians are venal.

The problem is that politicians have the power in the first place to hand out favors, to discriminate, to meddle, to obstruct or promote, subsidize or penalize. Remove these powers, and money will evaporate from the influence system and pathological deviants will no longer run for office.

Re:Root Cause

[nine-times]

How would you suggest we create a government without the power to "meddle"? Or are you an anarchist?

Sony is a multinational corporation

[Required Snark]

Yes, there is a US corporation that is a part of Sony, but ultimately they only have an economic stake in the well being of the United States. When the MPAA-RIAA collude with Sony to pass legislation whose side are they on?

Has anyone looked for their lobbying efforts on 1H-B visas? If Sony is able to buy access that influences legislation, what about TATA? They surely have an economic interest in the number of 1H-B visa jobs available. Do you think they would want to get more visas, and be willing to spend money to make that happen?

Our current campaign contribution system makes it impossible to tell who is spending money to on elections. Even if Sony is not technically breaking the law, does that mean that everyone else from overseas is being equally careful in following the rules?

Could China take advantage of these loopholes? Even if the Chinese government is not, why would Chinese business interests ignore the advantages?

What's in the secret Trans Pacific Partnership treaty? The bill has been given fast track status, so the only vote that will be taken by congress is to either accept it or reject it. Just like the DMCA, there will be no time to review a very complex document. Just look how that turned out.

The lack of transparency in political funding didn't happen by magic. It was a result of a long process that including having a right wing majority on the Supreme Court. Defending the current situation by saying it's legal is another way of sidestepping the issue of corruption in the political process. When there is no accounting for money in politics, the law will obviously be for sale to the highest bidder. In the current global economy that means anybody in the world. Does that seem like a good idea?