[Leaplist] RIAA, M$, bribe 50 named Politicians

Sun Jun 3 13:27:25 EDT 2007

As a Democrat, I find the large number of Democrats on this list distressing. 
I've written and called Senator Nelson more than once to express my dismay at 
his sycophantic lapdogging for the barons of copyright. But when it came time 
to vote, what was I going to do, cast a vote (or not) that would help 
Kathrine Harris get into power? I mean honestly, that's more than you can 
expect from any Democrat :-)

Maybe all 3 Democrats on LeapList should write Senators Nelson, Obama and 
Clinton asking them to give back the tainted RIAA money.

By the way, speaking of copyright baron lapdogs, the king of them all, Ted 
Stevens of Alaska, has come out strongly to permanently ban Internet sales 
taxes, which due to their complexity would put all small Internetters (like 
me) out of business if enacted. So from my perspective, Stevens is both 
terrible and wonderful.

Politics. Ugh!

SteveT

On Sunday 03 June 2007 13:06, patrick wrote:
> Contact Information For 50 Politicians Who Take Campaign Money From The
> RIAA
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | One of the ways the RIAA operates is by donating money to politicians
> | who then enact favorable legislation on their behalf. Don't let the
> | optimist in you believe that this doesn't work. It does.
>
> `----
>
> http://consumerist.com/consumer/worst-company-in-america/contact-informatio
>n-for-50-politicians-who-take-campaign-money-from-the-riaa-264638.php
> http://tinyurl.com/yuvpay
>
> Microsoft must be familiar with this ritual (see below).
>
>
> Related:
>
> MA Governor-Elect Names MS Anti-ODF Lobbyist to Technology Advisory Group
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | That person is Brian Burke, the Microsoft Regional Director for Public
> | Affairs, and if that surprises you, it surprises me as well, given the
> | degree of acrimonious debate and disinformation witnessed in
> | Massachusetts over the last 15 months involving the Information
> | Technology Division's transition to ODF.... it is my understanding that
> | it was Burke who led the lobbying effort on Beacon Hill against ODF, and
> | also urged legislators to introduce the amendment intended to take away
> | much of the ITD's planning power generally, and as regards standards
> | specifically, and hand it to a task force made up of political
> | appointees.... Although I'm told that Burke announced yesterday at the
> | first meeting of the new working group that he will be participating as a
> | private citizen rather than a Microsoft employee, I believe that Burke
> | should recuse himself from participating in any discussions or
> | recommendations relating to
> | document format standards.
>
> `----
>
> http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2006112816134
>3183
>
>
> Politics and tech companies: follow the money
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | Microsoft took first place with $651,100 given out, while
> | Hewlett-Packard gave only $185,550, and Gateway gave a paltry
> | $2,000. Microsoft's donations certainly illustrate well the true
> | size of the company and the extent of its political concerns.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | For instance, Microsoft's PAC spent $1.7 million in the 2006 election
> | cycle, but only a third of this went to federal candidates. What
> | happened to the rest? It went to local campaigns, paid out a few
> | thousand dollars at a time to groups like "Boal for Iowa House" in
> | Ankeny, IA. It also funded other PACs like the "Associated Republicans
> | of Texas" and the "Blue Dog Political Action Committee." No race is
> | apparently too small to be funded; even Indiana State Representative
> | Terri Austin of Anderson, IN got $500.
> | Lobbyists
> |
> | But the real money isn't even given to the candidates directly. It
> | goes to lobbyists, which can be safer investments since they stand no
> | chance of losing at the polls. The complete-year figures from 2005
> | show that Microsoft spent $8.7 million on lobbyist expenses. Almost
> | a million dollars of that money went to Covington & Burling, a
> | lobbying firm that also represents the National Football League and
> | the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America. Microsoft's
> | total spending on lobbying has risen substantially from the $4
> | million it spent in 1998.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Where does it come from?
> |
> | Although some of this money comes from large employee donations,
> | most of it does not. Take Microsoft, for instance; the Center for
> | Responsive Politics says that the company received only $302,599
> | from individual donors who gave more than $200 in this election
> | cycle, only a small fraction of the $1.7 million actually spent.
> | As is typical, much of this money came from the company's top
> | brass, while the rest was made up of small contributions.
> |
> | The maximum individual contribution to a PAC is $5,000 a year.
> | Melinda, whose occupation is listed in Federal Election Commission
> | records as "homemaker," regularly contributes this amount, as does
> | Bill. Steve Ballmer coughed up, too. Microsoft can use general
> | company funds to support the PAC and its operations, but cannot
> | give directly to candidates.
>
> `----
>
> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061110-8194.html
>
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | As CIO of Massachusetts from February to November last year, Louis
> | Gutierrez had to endure most of the brunt of Microsoft Corp.'s political
> |                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> | wrath over a state policy calling for the adoption of the Open Document
> | ^^^^^
> | Format for Office Applications, or ODF -- a rival to the software
>
> vendor's
>
> | Office Open XML file format.
>
> `----
>
> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&art
>icleId=9012760&source=rss_news50
>
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> |    Quinn:  Almost to a person, to anybody involved or who knows about
> |    the ODF issue, they attributed the story to Microsoft, right, wrong
> |    or otherwise. Senator Pacheco may be a bully but I do not believe he
> |    is disingenious and would stoop to such a tactic. Senator Pacheco and
> |    Secretary Galvin's office remain very heavily influenced by the
> |                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> |    Microsoft money and its lobbyist machine, as witnessed by their
> |    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> |    playbook and words, in my opinion.
>
> `----
>
> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060119232859729
>
>
>
> State by state, Microsoft responds to creeping threat
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | Characteristically, as lawmakers like Homan have learned,
> | Microsoft's hardly taking a passive position.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | 'Microsoft sees what's coming. Things like Word and Excel
> | sort of like a drug now getting ready to go generic.'
>
> `----
>
> http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/state-state-microsoft-responds-assaul
>t/story.aspx?guid=%7BC0D943C4%2D4ADC%2D471C%2D8F87%2D9181A4EC3E7B%7D&siteid=
>yhoof http://tinyurl.com/2akafj
>
>
> Years of deadlock on EU patent bring some new thinking
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | When Bill Gates visits Brussels on Thursday to speak with
> | government officials, software developers and customers, he
> | plans to wade into one of Europe's longest-running, most
> | fruitless debates: the pursuit of a unified patent system.
> | Gates, chairman of Microsoft, wants a simple system that will
> | allow the world's largest software maker and other companies
> | to protect their intellectual property in the European Union -
> | and profit from licensing their patents.
>
> `----
>
> http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/08/business/patents.php
>
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | "A source that deals with the company said unofficially that Gates
> | proposed Microsoft's Digital Rights Management technology as a national
> | standard to fight piracy at the governmental level."
>
> `----
>
> http://www.kommersant.com/p719683/r_528/
>
>
> Leaked letter warns of open source 'threat to eco-system'
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | leaked letter to the European Commission has revealed the extent of
> | lobbying by proprietary software groups to prevent the widespread
> | adoption of open-source software.
> |
> | Sent in response to a recent report on the role of open-source
> | software in the European economy, Microsoft-funded pressure
> | group, the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) warned of
> | potentially dire effects if too much encouragement was given
> | to open source software development.
>
> `----
>
> http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=7109
>
>
> Study: open source needs official support; Lobbyist
> disagrees with "flawed" conclusions
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | The study, commissioned by the European Commission, Directorate
> | General Enterprise and Industry, is but a small part of the larger
> | FLOSSPOLS project that aims to keep the EU a leader in global
> | development of open source software.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Now, the ISC is widely regarded as a shill for Microsoft, although
> | the member list also includes companies like Intel, Autodesk, and
> | RSA Security (now an EMC subsidiary). The 300-strong member list is
> | mostly padded with lesser lights such as Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi(
> | Turkey), ThreeSixtyDegreez (Pakistan), and Datoprogrammu Apgads
> | (Latvia). The institute pushes hard for the right to patent
> | software, alongside regular bashings of open source businesses.
>
> `----
>
> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061017-8011.html
>
>
> Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | E-mails released by the committee show that Abramoff, often
> | with the knowledge of the groups' leaders, exploited the tax-exempt
> | status and leveraged the stature of the organizations to build
> | support among conservatives for legislation or government action
> | sought by clients including Microsoft Corp., mutual fund company
> | DH2 Inc., Primedia Inc.'s Channel One Network, and Brown-Forman,
> | maker of Jack Daniel's whiskey.
>
> `----
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR200610120
>0889.html http://tinyurl.com/y2rbpu
>
>
> EU official joins consultancy serving Microsoft
>
> http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-10
>-03T134311Z_01_L03693228_RTRIDST_0_TECH-MICROSOFT-OFFICIAL.XML&rpc=66&type=q
>cna http://tinyurl.com/h47g3
>
>
> US ambassador to the EU was former Microsoft lobbyist
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | Before C. Boyden Gray was named as George Bush's number one person in
> | Europe, he was a lawyer lobbying on behalf of Microsoft.
>
> `----
>
> http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34706
>
>
> US politicians go to bat for Microsoft
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/26/microsoft_eu_political_lobbying/
>
>
> Changing the Report, After the Vote
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | That agreement was nearly imperiled last weekend, though. Gerri
> | Elliott, corporate vice president at Microsoft's Worldwide Public
> | Sector division, sent an e-mail message to fellow commissioners
> | Friday evening saying that she "vigorously" objected to a paragraph
> | in which the panel embraced and encouraged the development of open
> | source software and open content projects in higher education.
>
> `----
>
> http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/01/commission
>
>
> Big businesses boast of patent benefits, for small businesses
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>
> | A report published by an EU task force on intellectual property claims
> | that small businesses benefit from a patent system, despite lacking
> | almost any participation by the small business community.
> |
> | Instead, the report, titled IPR (intellectual property rights) for
> | competitiveness and innovation, was written up almost entirely by
> | large corporations and the patent industry.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | The report does note objections from the likes of patentfrei.de and
> | Sun Microsystems, which were recorded at some length in the report.
> | But this does not appear to have impacted the conclusion of the
> | report in any way
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Jean-Pierre Laisne, of ObjectWeb, an open source software community,
> | said that he found the report useless: participants were told that
> | all their contributions would be recorded but at the end only
> | those of Business Software Alliance and Microsoft were used.
>
> `----
>
> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/99155/big-businesses-boast-of-patent-benefits-f
>or-small-businesses.html _______________________________________________
> Leaplist mailing list
> Leaplist at leap-cf.org
> http://lists.leap-cf.org/mailman/listinfo/leaplist