Talk about Catch-22s. Our mass media tend to ignore the multibillion-dollar copyright giveaways from the Clinton years and beyond. All too often the excuse is, “No one cares.” But how can Americans bristle if they don’t know the truth?
A huge transfer of wealth is happening from schools and libraries–and consumers–to the copyright overlords. Could news organizations be wimping out or just clueless? Not that my expectations are so high. I take it for granted that a cable network owned by a megaconglomerate will use a professional copyright zealot like Hilary Rosen as a commentator on the doings and misdoings of her fellow Democrats. Besides CNBC could actually be right to put her on the air. Hollywood does own the Democratic party, so why not go to the source?
The venerable Atlantic, however, one of my favorite magazines, known for its journalistic acumen and integrity, is supposed to give us fair reporting. So why does the September issue have 9,000+ words on Hollywood money and not one bloody mention of copyright or Jack Valenti, the master lobbyist who has so brilliantly marshaled Tinsel Town’s millions even if he is an idiot about tech?
In “The Hollywood Campaign,” Eric Alterman even goes out of his way to say most of the glamour people are above such grubby concerns as tax breaks and other special favors:
…among the tiny percentage of Americans who do contribute large amounts of money to political campaigns (the number who give a thousand dollars or more to any candidate hovers around one tenth of one percent of the population), Hollywood contributors are almost alone in not trying to buy themselves anything so concrete as a tax break or a watered-down regulation. Although the entertainment industry itself does have corporate PACs, which do the industry’s bidding and spread its wealth accordingly, most of the contributions handed out by individual members of the entertainment industry are ideological money that buys them nothing.
In fact, I would agree with Alterman that most Hollywood money is not given expressedly with copyright in mind. But how could anyone so trustingly write of David Geffen, the billionaire recording bigshot and an owner of Dreamworks SKG, who raised $20 million for Clinton and other Democrats? Supposedly Geffen’s sole reward was “a sleepover in the Lincoln Bedroom and the knowledge that he was part of the inner circle of Clinton’s ‘go-to’ guys in town hardly the sort of quid pro quo one suspects when the President’s friend and top contributor is, say, Enron’s Kenneth Lay.” The DMCA didn’t count? The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, either? Whether or not Geffen leaned aggressively on the White House for those rewards, they came–in abudunance.
Simply put, is Alterman really naive enough to think that in making copyright laws, politicians don’t notice the sources of the fortunes that Hollywood has thrust at them? Or that rich producers don’t want to alienate the top studio bosses? I’d still love to know why Steve Bing, mentioned in the Alterman article as a ready writer of checks, gave $900K+ to John Edward’s New American Optimists PAC for reasons that neither will explain. Nor would Bing’s people reveal who might have prompted him to donate very early in the campaign to Edwards, who sits on a copyright-related committee and won’t utter a word against the Bono Act despite his famous “populism.”
Given so many situations like the Edwards-Bing connection, why didn’t the Alterman mention the C word directly, at least in passing? He was willing to note the hypocrisy of the beautiful people in driving SUVs while forking over money to environmental causes. But he wrote not one word about the vast chasm between Hollywood-bought copyright laws and all the nice noises that the liberals there make on the need for equal opportunity for all. Doesn’t anyone in Hollywood care that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act cheated millions of students of the ability to download The Great Gatsby from free libraries on the Net such as Project Gutenberg’s? That young musicians lack free access to the works of George Gershwin? That the DMCA could cost the consumers many billions by complicating life for third-party maintenance providers and others? That Hollywood-bought copyright laws are so frequently a threat to free speech?
Coincidentally or not, Alterman has his own little tie with the copyright zealots. He writes that John Podesta, the president and CEO “of the recently formed Center for American Progress (where I am a senior fellow) often strategizes on the phone with Hollywood consultants, and occasionally makes the trek to Los Angeles for a fundraising dinner.” Guess what. Podesta was White House chief of staff for the Clinton Administration, during which so much of the harm from the copyright laws came about. John’s lobbyist brother Anthony represented the Creative Incentives Coalition, which helped pave the way for Draconian copyright laws. Even today Anthony’s firm represents the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti’s outfit.
I don’t know if the Podesta connection compromised Alterman, who, among other things, has written a defense of the liberal media. In his place, however, many journalists would have felt inhibited. I’d love to know the extent to which Alterman relied on John Podesta for the truth about Hollywood money. Is it possible that the Atlantic Monthly unwittingly became part of the copyright lobby’s spin control? Most of the story was about the obvious, the fact that Hollywood liberals enjoyed giving money to buy “gravitas,” while Washington relished the glamour. What’s the news here? Why didn’t Alterman write about the huge but not-so-well-known copyright giveaways with which both Podestas are all too familiar? I hope that the Atlantic will revisit the Hollywood money scene in the near future and assign a more appropriate journalist to write about Valenti, the Podesta brothers, and the rest from a more balanced perspective.
Oh, those media puffs: The National Catholic Reporter calls Alterman “the most honest and incisive media critic writing today.” Well, maybe he’s Diogenes on non-Hollywood issues. For all I know, perhaps Alterman meant well and just fell for the standard Hollywood cons with or without any influence from John Podesta.
Requisite irony: Does Alterman–an English professor, among his other incarnations–have any idea of the harm that Hollywood-bought laws will do to appreciation of the classics?
What Alterman did get right: “In 2002 entertainment ranked first among all industries funding Democratic Party committees, and roughly 80 percent of the industry’s party contributions went to Democratic candidates and committees; just 20 percent went to the Republican Party. From 1989 up to the start of the current election cycle Hollywood had given the party nearly $100 million for federal elections alone close to the $114 million Republicans received from their friends in the oil and gas industries. Together with organized labor and the trial bar, Hollywood is now one of the three pillars of the Democrats’ financial structure. Say what you will about the rigors of fundraising, it’s got to be a lot more fun to hang poolside at Pacific Palisades with Sharon Stone and Cameron Diaz than at the annual AFL-CIO retreat in Bal Harbour with John Sweeney and Richard Trumka.”
A reminder of where I’m coming from: I’m a lifelong liberal Democrat fed up with my party’s hypocrisy on copyright matters. My opinions of Kerry-Edwards will instantly change if they show some guts on copyright law; same for Alterman. I was pleased to see John Kerry taking on the media monopolies this week; but then most voters feel the same, especially members of minorities, to whom he was speaking. I’d like to see some rubber meet the road on specific copyright issues. If Kerry really values diverse voices and freedom of speech, why isn’t he speaking out against the DMCA and Bono?
