Penn State Lobbying

MPAA and the GOP Platform

The Hollywood Reporter reports:

Hollywood may be known as a Democratic stronghold, but the movie industry’s lead trade organization on Wednesday came out strongly in support of a plank in the Republican party platform supporting the need to protect intellectual property from Internet pirates.

Chris Dodd, the former Democratic Senator who is now Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a statement that he “wholeheartedly” agrees with his “friends in the Republican party” that it is important to protect the free flow of information but it is also important to protect American innovation by making sure that copyrighted material is not stolen by cyber pirates.

The text of the statement:

The Republican Party platform language strikes a very smart balance: it emphasizes the importance of us doing more as a nation to protect our intellectual property from online theft while underscoring the critical importance of protecting internet freedom.

As the party points out, the internet has been for its entire existence a source of innovation, and it is intellectual property that helps drive that innovation. Copyright is the cornerstone of innovation; it allows creators to benefit from what they create.

As Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor – herself once a Republican elected official – wrote, ‘[I]t should not be forgotten that the Framers intended copyright itself to be the engine of free expression. By establishing a marketable right to the use of one's expression, copyright supplies the economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas.’

I agree wholeheartedly with my friends in the Republican Party that we must protect the free flow of information on the internet while also protecting American innovators. It is imperative to our national economy and our national identity that we protect an internet that works for everyone.