At a public workshop on digital rights management (DRM) held at the Department of Commerce yesterday, it became abundantly clear that the entertainment industry intends nothing less than to make fair use of copyrighted works illegal.
According to Grant Gross’ report on the DRM workshop, fair-use and consumer-rights advocates were prevented from addressing the assemblage. The panel itself was heavily weighted with representatives of the technology and entertainment industries. Of the 23 panelists, only two, Graham Spencer of digitalconsumer.org and Bob Schwartz from the Home Recording Rights Coalition, represented the interests of technology and entertainment customers.
Electronic Frontier Foundation intellectual property attorney Robin Gross said that the EFF’s “position was not welcome at this table.”
Probably because of the way in which the members of the panel were selected, Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti felt comfortable attempting to rewrite history:
“At one point Valenti even claimed that the movie industry supported VCRs when they first came out, supposedly like the movie industry is now supporting the Internet. Bob Schwartz of the Home Recording Rights Coalition reminded Valenti that the MPAA tried to get an injunction against VCRs in the early ‘80s and wanted to charge a $25 to $50 ‘piracy fee’ for every blank videotape sold.”
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