Today, December 15, the Vice President is holding a roundtable discussion on this Administration’s commitment to enforcing laws against the piracy of intellectual property. The White House claims they are”bring together all of the stakeholders to discuss ways to combat piracy in this rapidly changing technological age.” This is simply false, this meeting only includes big media and is blatantly ignoring user rights. On the invited list are Sony, Warner Bros, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC/Universal, Harper Collins, News Corp, Disney, MPAA, RIAA, but not even one representative from EFF, PK, Public Patent, Organization for Transformative Works, or other public interest groups were invited.
This is a ridiculous mockery of open public policy discussion, this is like only inviting OPEC to the table to discuss climate change and pretending like all everyone is represented.Gigi Sohn did a great job summing up the white houses choice of guest list when she stated:
No consumer or public-interest groups, technology companies, technology associations or Internet Service Providers are on the guest list. No one who questions the need for Draconian governmental policies on behalf of the privileged special interest group for whom this meeting is being held is on the guest list.
