Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick




Gray Davis Panders To Entertainment Industry

from the trying-to-please-everyone-with-bad-bills dept

As California's Governor (for now) Gray Davis fights to keep his job in the upcoming recall election, it seems he's suddenly signing some very bad legislation to pander to various constituents. First, he signed the anti-spam bill that goes too far. Now, he's trying to make the entertainment industry happy by signing some "Hollywood friendly" laws concerning digital music and movies. The first puts an RIAA member on the state task force looking into "high tech theft". The task force will now add file sharing to the crimes they will spend tax payer money fighting. That's right - not only will the RIAA help put you in jail for listening to music, they now get to use your own taxpayer money to put you there. The second law makes using a video camera in a movie theater a misdemeanor punishable by up to one-year in jail. Considering the fact that most "pirated" films aren't coming from people in movie theaters, this will do nothing to actually stop movie copying. However, it will throw a few more people in jail (more taxpayer money) for longer than plenty of real criminals will spend in jail.

4 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Sep 26th, 2003 @ 9:07am
  • Ol' Gov. Davis

    Mike, I think you wrote this one up before you had your coffee this morning. Davis doesn't "pass" laws, he signs the ones the state legislature passes. Blame them first.

    He -does- appoint people to commissions, though. Putting an RIAA fox among the chickens is bad policy and he should be called down for this one.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Sep 27th, 2003 @ 10:55pm
  • last time I checked...

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...Gray Davis and Hollywood inhabit the same state.

    So, duh, of course he panders to a multi-billion dollar industray that litterlay employs 100s of thouands of people. The second a politician in California doesn't respect Hollywood, they will either be shot or defeated.

    Jesus christ... how fscking stupid do you have to be to be shocked or outraged by this?

    This is to be assumed... just like the existance of fundamental Newtonian forces.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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