The blackout day staged Wednesday 1/18/12 by a multitude of popular websites sent denizens of Capitol Hill scurrying away from the two main anti-piracy measures being pushed in the House (SOPA) and the Senate (PIPA). Both measures have been removed from the legislative calendar, and the head of MPAA is suggesting that Hollywood and Silicon Valley meet to hammer out a compromise.
The retreat from the two measures was so intense it included not only members of Congress who at one time supported them, it also included members who went so far as to co-sponsor them.
MPAA’s Chris Dodd, no stranger to the doings on Capitol Hill with his years spent there representing the citizens of Connecticut, is suggesting that content providers and internet companies try to talk through this. He has gone so far as to request that the White House convene such a meeting. According to Hillicon Valley, that isn’t going to happen.
Dodd is still hopeful of some kind of action. He said, “…we hope the dynamics of the conversation can change and become a sincere discussion about how best to protect the millions of American jobs affected by the theft of American intellectual property. The threat posed by these criminal operations has been widely acknowledged by even the most ardent critics. It is incumbent that they now sincerely work with all of us to achieve a meaningful solution to this critically important goal.”
RBR-TVBR observation: We think former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) has the right idea. While members of Congress all have their specialty issues, they by definition have to become generalists – they have to know enough to vote on everything. The main stakeholders in this battle, who have intimate familarity with the ins and outs of the issue, have a better chance of finding a happy center than do legislators.
