October 27, 2003
From Valenti to Tauzin
So the rumor is that Jack Valenti will be stepping down and Rep. Billy Tauzin will be taking his place. Kevin Werbach asserts that this is will help centrists in the copyfight.
I might be wrong, but it seems that over the last two years Valenti’s aloofness has actually started to hurt the MPAA. All Valenti has right now is his moral rhetoric, and he’s had to make it more and more extreme over the years, because he doesn’t have any hard evidence to back up his argument. At some point, the extremism is no longer “downright reasonable.”
While some Congressmen will listen to and speak Valenti’s language, it hasn’t gotten a lot done. I see Congress responding to the RIAA’s statistics and their supposed business problems; bills are springing up specifically to address them. What has the MPAA gotten done? The Hollings proposal and the broadcast flag. The former is the exemplification of Valenti’s extreme stance and thus had no traction. The latter is actually an example of Valenti and the MPAA situated within the “political fray.” He’s getting it done because he has the right connections in Congress (Tauzin and Hollings) so as to get the FCC. He’s acting just like a political “street fighter,” slipping the proposal in through the backdoor because even Congress knew it was unreasonable.
Filed by Derek Slater at 5:39 pm under General news
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