Last Sunday I predicted that a companion bill to the Senate’s Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) digital rights management legislation would be floated in the House of Representatives as early as this week. My money was on Representative Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts) as the primary author of the bill. After all, Markey is a proxy for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which has a pretty big stake in this issue.
Today Representative Adam Schiff (D-California) tipped his hand as the primary author of the companion copy-protection bill by issuing a letter soliciting co-sponsors. I really thought the proxy politicians were smarter than this and that Schiff was a long-shot as too obvious and not having much of a track record for holding his seat. I mean, he’s really the Representative from Disney, after all, representing California’s 27th District. If this were a horse race, Schiff would be a mudder; unable to run on the grass but deadly in the mud because he sits on the House Judiciary committee.
In a clearly disingenuous statement, a spokesperson for the ranking Democrat on the copyright subcommittee of the House Judiciary committee, Howard Berman (D-California), told Wired News that while “it’s always better for the industries to set technology standards… pressure is building in Congress.” Pressure is right. Of all the members of Congress, Howard Berman has received more contributions from the entertainment industry than any other politician during the current election cycle. A whopping US$171,391, almost double his nearest competitor.
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