Mickey Mouse-ABC Goes to DC and Walks "The Path to 9/11" for Perpetual Copyright and Cable Access

[McCamy Taylor]

I have written about CBS and CNN, but they were not the only corporate news network that lead our nation to war in 2002-3, pretending that Saddam had something to do with 9/11 and that he had WMDs when the UN said he didn't and McClatchy newspapers said he didn't and members of Congress with an ounce of sense said he didn't. CBS and CNN were not the only news channels that cheered on the Swift Boat Vets in 2004 and sat on their Ohio exit polls later that winter. Mickey Mouse and company joined in the fun via ABC News. Why? What did the Republicans have to offer the House of Mouse?

With the death of Walt Disney, the creative mind behind the Mouse empire, Disney had only one thing going for it----copyright laws. It had all those characters that Uncle Walt had created. Mickey, Donald, Pluto, Daffy. It had the old classic movies, which it could recycle every few years to a new crop of children. With the advent of VHS and DVD technology, it would sell tickets and copies of its movies and the spin off programming from those movies and the merchandising and fill its cable channel with television shows based upon characters that it owned the copyrights to. The only problem was that copyrights were not forever. The exclusive rights to Mickey were ready to expire early in the 21st century. What was Disney to do?

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020305_sprigman.html

Back in 1998, representatives of the Walt Disney Company came to Washington looking for help. Disney's copyright on Mickey Mouse, who made his screen debut in the 1928 cartoon short "Steamboat Willie," was due to expire in 2003, and Disney's rights to Pluto, Goofy and Donald Duck were to expire a few years later.

Rather than allow Mickey and friends to enter the public domain, Disney and its friends - a group of Hollywood studios, music labels, and PACs representing content owners - told Congress that they wanted an extension bill passed.

Prompted perhaps by the Disney group's lavish donations of campaign cash - more than $6.3 million in 1997-98, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics - Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

The CTEA extended the term of protection by 20 years for works copyrighted after January 1, 1923. Works copyrighted by individuals since 1978 got "life plus 70" rather than the existing "life plus 50". Works made by or for corporations (referred to as "works made for hire") got 95 years. Works copyrighted before 1978 were shielded for 95 years, regardless of how they were produced.

As the article goes on to relate, forces opposed to what amounted to essentially perpetual copyright (since Congress would presumably keep extending copyrights every time they were about to expire) and retroactive copyrights of materials that no one even claimed any more were mounting a vigorous Supreme Court challenge that had a chance of succeeding. That meant that companies like Disney, which had already invested heavily in getting the legislation passed, needed an administration and an attorney general who would go to bat for them before the Supreme Court. Unfortunately for Disney Al "Information Superhighway" Gore was probably not going to be that man. In 1995, Gore was quoted about a different copyright extension bill

http://govt.eserver.org/new-copyright-law.txt

‘Just last week, Vice-President Al Gore said "we can't have the
creation of an Information Rich and Information Poor."’

I am sure everyone here remembers how Disney's ABC played along with "Gore is a liar".

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5920188/the_press_vs_al_gore

'ABC's George Stephanopoulos lamented that the vice president had "revealed his Pinocchio problem"' according to the classic Rolling Stone article about media bias. Stephanopoulos has been having fun with "Edwards is a phony" this campaign season.

If Gore was not the friend of perpetual copyright, then maybe Bush was. John Ashcroft successfully defended CTEA before the Supreme Court. However, Disney's political troubles were not over. In 2005, legislation was introduced that would restore fair use rules which had been weakened by 1998 legislation. Fair use allowed consumers to copy music, films etc. to view or listen to at home. The 1998 legislation made it a crime to bypass copy protection for fair use purposes. The 2005 legislation would strip those criminal penalties. You can read more about the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act at the two sites below.

http://anepc.com/blog102705.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCRA

This kind of a bill was a step backwards for Disney, which is always in the forefront when it comes to slapping copy protection on its product. (Presumably they have figured out that parents might copy the video or DVD and show the kids the copy over and over in order to keep the original pristine as a collectible. By making this fair use impossible, you have to buy two!) Obviously, a Democratic controlled Congress could do some serious harm to the Mouse.

Even Republicans could cause trouble, under guise of controlling smut. John McCain and Ted "A bridge to nowhere" Stevens were working on something called "a la carte" cable that would have allowed consumers to pick and choose which cable channels they would buy. Disney absolutely, positively did not want anything to do with this! Back in the days when they were a la carte, their market share of cable was atrocious. Business only started to pick up when people were forced to have the wretched little Mouse and his friends in their home.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv/browse_thread/thread/a50e78072c97f29b/172f002d2f6a7ecf

Disney Channel urges you to oppose any legislative or regulatory
effort to create a la carte cable or satellite programming regulation.
Disney Channel is the premier destination for childrens' and family
viewing and has a unique perspective on the issue of "a la carte"
programming. Disney Channel was launched as an a la carte service, but
was unable to develop successfully until it migrated to being carried
by cable and satellite on the expanded basic tier of programming.

Disney Channel's Oripinal Launch as an A La Carte Channel Was
Unsuccessful.* Disney Channel originally launched in 1983 as an a la
carte service. During this time, Disney Channel's availability was
limited to only those kids and families who could afford to pay the
additional $10 to $16 monthly fee. Notwithstanding even the strength
of the Disney brand, penetration hovered on average in the 9-10%
range.

<snip>

Disney Channel's Migration to Expanded Basic Succeeded and Resulted
in Higher Oualitv and More Diverse Programming.* By the end of 2000,
Disney Channel was offered only as an expanded basic service. <snip> This investment in programming has resonated with Disney
Channel's audience in the form of higher ratings as Disney Channel has
tripled its ratings for kids 6-1 1 since it was an a la carte service
in 1995.

Tripled ratings! Three times as many children know who Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, the Lion King, Snow White and all the rest are. That means more merchandising opportunities, more films sold, more box office receipts for the spin offs and an ever growing Disney empire, since television is the entertainment center around which most children live their lives. There is no way Disney would want to go back to what it had before.

Unfortunately for Disney, the Republican controlled Senate was talking about doing just that. And the Bush FCC, which had no power to regulate cable, but which did have the power to make recommendations, was hinting that it was going to recommend a la carte cable. And then, something happened to make the FCC Chairman change his mind.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28496-2005Apr5.html

Cable companies worried about a regulatory clampdown on their industry met the new Federal Communications Commission chairman today and got good news.

"I prefer markets and competition to regulation whenever possible," FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin told the annual cable industry convention here. "Competition first, then regulation."

<snip>

Martin favors establishing a "family tier" system for cable that would allow families to purchase a package of child-friendly channels, such as the Disney Channel and Viacom Inc.'s Nickelodeon, and avoid saltier offerings.

"That's one of several tools" available to the cable industry, Martin said in an interview. He said the cable industry has an "opportunity to step up to the plate and address these issues" to head off regulation.

Martin spoke briefly with Robert A. Iger, co-chief executive of the Walt Disney Co., at Tuesday's show.

What exactly did Martin and Iger talk about? Oh, to have been a fly on the wall. One thing I do know is this. The FCC broke the good news (for Disney) in April 2005. By July 2005, ABC had started production on a piece of anti-Clinton, anti-Democratic, pro-Republican propaganda so atrocious that it has its own wiki entry, "The Path to 9/11"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Path_to_9/11

Coincidence? The piece was timed for the 2006 Congressional elections---and designed to be an opening jab in the fight against Hillary Clinton, whom everyone knew would be a Democratic contender for president. It was an embarrassing work that no network would produce, unless it had something to gain. And Disney, which had been valued at over $50 billion in 2004 when Comcast tried to buy it, had a lot to gain simply by keeping Republicans in positions of power in Congress and the White House. The elephant had been very, very good for the mouse.

The Bush administration has continued to court the mouse. In 2007, Alberto Gonzales tried to get Congress interested in something called the Intellectual Property Protection Act.

http://bostonnow.com/community/blogs/rek2/2007/05/17/intellectual-property-protection-act-of-2007/

This proposed legislation is a result of Hollywood’s lobbying, serving their special interests at the expense of the public good. As we have seen, thanks to the recent events like the Digg revolt, the public have turned against DRM. The illegal hex code that can be used to remove the DRM from HD-DVD can now be found on over a million web pages.

Big Media describe DRM as Digital Rights Management. However, since its purpose is to restrict you the user, it is more accurate to describe DRM as Digital Restrictions Management. DRM Technology can restricts users’ access to movies, music, literature and software, indeed all forms of digital data. Unfree software implementing DRM technology is simply a prison in which users can be put to deprive them of the rights that the law would otherwise allow them. This is Hollywood’s attempt to scare us all into accepting DRM. Now is the time to take action!

<snip>

As you know, Disney is a leading supporter of DRM in video and movies and a proponent of the permanent extension of copyright, sometimes called the “Mickey Mouse Act”. Disney is founding members of AACSLA, the organization that license the HD-DVD DRM scheme. They are a driving force behind the MPAA and one of the main instigators of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) - that makes circumventing a DRM scheme a crime.

Here is what the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 would really do. Read this link. It is scary. Life in prison. Homeland Security wiretapping your phone, confiscating your computer. All to keep the Mouse's profit shares up.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Intellectual_Property_Protection_Act_of_2007

If I were ABC News, I would be the administration's rat for hire, too. A $50 billion empire made of celluloid, pixels and electrons is a fragile thing that needs all the protection it can buy.

[Bitwit1234]

1. Disney -- hey wasn't that where Britney Spears

was introduced to the public.....they sure can pick, family value entertainers can't they.

[AX10]

2. That tells me everything I need to know about them.

[onenote]

3. fact checking

There is a lot of information in the OP, and for the most part it is factually accurate. But a collection of facts doesn't always justify all of the conclusions that one reaches on those facts.
With the clear understanding that I think that the COpyright Term Extension Act was a enormous mistake and a clear sop to Disney, a few things to consider.

First, the bill was supported by Democrats and repubs. AMong those co-sponsoring it in the House -- HOward Berman and John Conyers.

Second, ultimately, the bill only was able to be enacted because of a compromise engineered by rep. sensenbrenner, who wanted a separate bill that protected restaurants and bars from over-enthusiastic enforcement efforts of ASCAP, BMI, etc. (lot of pubs in Sensenbrenner's Milwaukkee-area district).

Third, connecting the way Al Gore was treated by the media in 2000 to the court case against the Term Extension bill is just a stretch and a half. The Act was first challenged in 1999 in a case then known as Eldred v. Reno, as in Janet Reno. The Reno Justice Department defended the Act and Judge June Green of the District Court (a Democrat) upheld the law. Her ruling was affirmed by the Court of Appeals (again with the Reno DOJ arguing in support of the law) in a 2-1 decision in which the dissenting judge was David Sentelle, noted Reagan appointee (the other two judges also were repubs). The idea that ABC was trashing Gore to make sure he wasn't president when this case got to the Supreme Court is simply speculation, and speculation that seems to have little basis. Gore, of course, had a lot of support from Hollywood in the 2000 elections, and received contributions from, among others, Robert Iger and Michael Eisner of Disney.

As for FCC Chairman Martin and the a la carte issue, the idea that Martin has changed his position on a la carte would come as a surprise to basically everyone and anyone who deals with the FCC.
Martin's problem is that the FCC doesn't have the authority to impose a la carte obligations on cable and he doesn't have the votes to get a measure through the FCC recommending that Congress enact a la carte. But he continues to stump for a la carte at every opportunity. For example: http://tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0014/t.6726.html


Again, the Copyright Term Extension Act is a horrible law. And Congress was pushed, and pushed hard, by Disney to pass the law. But it wasn't a partisan thing (it passed on a voice vote in both the House and Senate and as noted, had bi-partisan sponsors, including Conyers and Berman in the House).

[McCamy Taylor]

4. Martin has been recommending a la carte for several years, therefore

it seemed very odd to me that in the spring of 2005 he allowed himself to be quoted as meeting with industry execs and assuring them that he was a "hands off" kind of guy who was only going to recommend family package, which was a much more benign (from Disney's point of view) legislation from Congress, rather than a la carte cable legislation. Presumably, Congress would listen to the FCC head, and if he did not think a la carte cable was a good idea, Sens. McCain and Stevens would scrap it. Why did he change his mind at that time? Why did ABC decide to proceed with "The Path to 9/11" the Hindenburg of propaganda films almost immediately afterwards? The timing stinks.

Recently, Martin has begun an aggressive push for a la carte cable once again. From any other White House, this would imply that Bush-Cheney do not care what the corporate media thinks about them. However, look at my post about the administration's dealings with CNN. Note how they handled the Adelphia acquisitions. The FCC, which should have had a Republican laisez-fair ideology, made AOL Time-Warner wait an almost unheard of 404 days before it got the A-Ok for that deal to go through. Why? It is consistent with the carrot-stick game that the administration has played with the corporate media.The wait occured in late 2005 and 2006, in the run up to the 2006 Congressional elections. CNN made changes in its programming during that time that were friendly to the GOP. I wonder if Martin is currently applying the stick to Disney and other cable channel owners, getting them in line for the 2008 elections.

No, there is no way to be sure what any one of the numerous administration actions in relation to the various members of the corporate media means. But taken together, they suggest a pattern---and the pattern certainly explains some atrocious behavior on the part of some news networks which have exposed them to ridicule---like ABC's "The Path to 9/11" (ABC's entertainment wing, not the news wing, but since it was supposed to be a docudrama, it might as well have been ABC News).

[onenote]

5. the back story on a la carte and family tiers

When Martin spoke about family tiers in April 2005, he had been Chairman for all of about two weeks. Two influential repubs with oversight jurisdiction with respect to the FCC, Barton of Texas and Upton of Michigan, were anti- a la carte and were supportive of the family tier concept as a way to get around the issue as it related to indecency. So Martin, hesitantly, weighed in with his tepid support.

But it lasted just a few months. Before the year was out, Martin had engineered a new report on a la carte that came to the conclusion that it would save consumers money, directly contradicting an earlier report that had reached the opposite conclusion. Even before the report was unveiled, he was promoting it on Capitol Hill. http://www.news.com/A-la-carte-TV/2100-1038_3-5980800.html

By May of 2006, Martin was co-authoring an op-ed with McCain and pushing a McCain a la carte proposal. And he hasn't slowed down. More recently, he slammed minority groups that oppose a la carte, suggesting that they had been "bought" by the cable industry. In short, his aggressive push for a la carte is not "recent" but has been ongoing for almost all of his Chairmanship.

[McCamy Taylor]

7. More back story, from a different perspective

http://blogs.mediapost.com/tv_board/?p=96

I’m a little confused about the Federal Communications Commission’s vigilant pursuit of its a la carte cable initiative. Is it simply a pricing issue — too high a cost for the number of channels that are actually viewed within a household — or is it another bureaucratic stab at curbing free speech?

Let’s vivisect the less complex pricing issue first. I don’t think that the government can mandate the cable industry’s business model.

<snip>

Is this, then a ruse on the part of the FCC to make cost an issue in the hopes that adults will sacrifice their programming preferences and consumption — given budgetary restraints — in favor of their children’s television pleasure — another way to control content that comes into the home? One would hope that the federal appeals court’s invalidation of the FCC’s indecency ruling against Fox for expletives aired during award ceremonies in 2002 and 2003 will put the kibosh on this type of political agenda maneuvering. There’s somethin’ happenin’ here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.

It is one thing for Martin to pander to the religious right now by advocating a la carte cable when the Democrats control Congress, since minority groups, such as Spanish speakers and Blacks as well as fringe political groups will want to keep cable offerings diverse which means keeping cable the way it is. If Martin was really serious about a la carte cable, why did not he use his influence as head of the FCC when the Republican controlled Congress, when McCain and Stevens were trying to pass the legislation? Why did wait until now? To me, what he is doing now looks like posturing.

This is the administration that co-opted the Secretaries of State of Florida and Ohio to violate federal election law to assist George W. Bush. The administration that lied about WMDs and is lying about Iran right now. That outed Valerie Plame. The administration that kidnaps, spies and tortures. The administration that sends suitcases of cash to Iraq along with unregistered weapons that just disappear. These people write their own rules. To keep up with them, you have to think like them. Do not ever assume that anything is beyond anyone in the Bush-Cheney administration.

[onenote]

9. Martin has never had the support he would need to push a la carte

Kevin Martin first spoke out in favor of a la carte when he was a commissioner, but not yet chairman. However, he's never been able to muster support. First, in 2003, the GAO looked at a la carte for McCain and found that it probably would raise prices for consumers. Then a 2004 FCC study, undertaken while Martin was still just a Commissioner (and Michael Powell was chairman) reached the same conclusion. WHen Powell left the FCC, Martin became Chairman (this is Spring 2005). He promptly had the a la carte study re-done with instructions that this time it come out the way he wanted -- showing that a la carte would be good for consumers. But other than McCain, no one on the Hill was biting on the idea and none of the remaining FCC Commissioner then in office (republican Kathleen Abernathy and Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein were supportive). WHen Abernathy left, she was replaced with Debbie Tate, who is a reliable vote for Martin on almost everything, but it was still a 2-2 split. It was not until May 2006 that a third republican was confirmed, Robert McDowell. But McDowell, as it turns out, also is cool to a la carte -- a relatively politically astute move, since the leading Hill republicans are cool to the idea as well.

How cool: well consider that barely a month after McDowell was confirmed,McCain offered an a la carte amendment to the then-pending telecommunication act rewrite legislation in Ted Stevens Commerce Committee. It was defeated by a vote of 20-2. I've searched my memory, and I can't recall a more humiliating and lop sided defeat in committee for an amendment.

So basically, its been the same story for Martin forever --- he's gung ho about a la carte. I've actually spoken to him directly about the issue and its both an indecency and a price thing -- its hard to tell whether he cares about one more than the other at this point. Or whether he even cares that much at all, or just is pissed at cable because they got along with Michael Powell and Martin basically has made it his mission to reverse much of what Powell did.

[McCamy Taylor]

10. So, Martin knows a la carte will never get through Congress and he pushes it for effect?

That seems to be the gist of your post. The most likely time for Congress to pass such a bill--one favored by Phyllis Schafly and James Dobson and the Parents Television Counsel as this article reports

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/magazines/fortune/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm

Was when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congresses, Dems never filibustered anything and there was a GOP president. I.e before October 2006. But even the family values GOP would not buy it. That means that all Martin is doing now is posturing for voters as this article speculates,

The FCC's Martin, a Republican, is scoring points with conservatives who could help him out if he decides to run for office in his home state of North Carolina, insiders say. The FCC can't even order cable to unbundle, which is why McCain, a 2008 presidential hopeful, wants Congress to step in.

because if the GOP wouldn't limit choice and drive small cable channels out of business, the Dems sure won't.

It is nice of you to stand up for Martin. I am sure he is a very dedicated man. It is possible that he is nothing like Michael Powell. For all I know, all the dealings between the White House and the corporate media may be handled by someone like Karl Rove, and everyone else may be puppets.

[onenote]

11. don't twist my words

i am not standing up for martin. That's bs. He has been a disaster as FCC Chairman, has been petty and vindictive and has destroyed the morale of that agency -- the day he leaves the FCC will be a day that I and a lot of other people will cheer quite loudly.

All I've tried to do here is explain what, in fact, has been going on with respect to the a la carte issue. A la carte is a terrible idea and Martin is a rogue official on it. There never was a best time for the repubs to enact a la carte because, as I demonstrated, it never had any real support from repubs or Democrats. Even when the repubs controlled both houses before the 2006 elections, McCain's a la carte amendment lost by 20-2 --- not a single repub on the Senate Commerce Committee supported him. A couple of a la carte bills were introduced while the repubs controlled both houses (one by Lipinski, for example). Not one of those bills garnered a co-sponsorship from anyone in the repub leadership.

And while some RW groups supported a la carte, other parts of the RW fundie base opposed it, including Falwell and crazy man Ralph Reed.

A la carte has become Martin's obsession. One that virtually no other policiticans share. I couldn't care less as to whether its a deeply sincerely felt obsession or just posturing. It doesn't matter since it had no chance of becoming law.

Interestingly, he has turned his attention to a different, but related cause -- he now is pushing to force cable programming networks and broadcasters that own more than one program service (for example, Fox, which owns both broadcast stations and cable networks like Fox News, Fox Sports, FX) and Time Warner (HBO, CNN, Cartoon, etc etc) from requiring cable and satellite distributors from licensing those channels in a "bundle". This so-called "a la carte" proposal would prevent a network like Disney from saying "if you want the right to carry ESPN, you have to agree to carry ESPN classic and ESPN News and ESPNgodonlyknowswhat". Does this play to the fundie? Not that I can see. But it pisses the hell out of the programming companies. Will it get enough support to be adopted? I doubt it.

[juno jones]

13. Of course Falwell and Dobson didn't like it

If we had ala carte, religious programming would go down the drain. Who would want 'em? I resent supporting the bastards now via my cable subscription, no matter how obliquely. I can only hope my husband finally gets tired of watching CSI re-runs and I can finally turn that filthy box off.

[muntrv]

6. Remember this the next time some repuke says they're anti-Hollywood.

[McCamy Taylor]

8. Ted Koppel on Dan Rather's suit against CBS and on ABC-Disney

I just saw this posted at Salon. If I had seen it earlier, I would have added it to my main text

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2007/09/koppel_on_rather_suit_squeezin.php

Calling the ouster of Dan Rather from CBS News in 2006 a “travesty,” newsman Ted Koppel said today that he hopes the $70 million suit filed by Mr. Rather against CBS and Viacom will bring Mr. Rather “relief from his pain.”

Mr. Koppel said he “hurt” for Mr. Rather, whom he characterized as a friend. Addressing the “60 Minutes” report about President George Bush??s National Guard service that preceded Mr. Rather’s departure from CBS, Mr. Koppel said the story was “much more correct than incorrect.” Mr. Koppel said that those responsible for the incorrect parts of the report deserved to be chastised and punished.

It is a “travesty” that “Dan Rather was squeezed out” with such little class from CBS News, Mr. Koppel said today at a forum at Fordham University in New York City that was put on by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

And about ABC's relationship to Disney:

Mr. Koppel also spoke about the difficulties that network news departments face as parts of media conglomerates. Speaking of his former employer, he said, “ABC News is a pimple on the elephant’s behind”—the elephant being ABC parent Walt Disney Co.

Explaining the remark later to TelevisionWeek, Mr. Koppel said he first realized how small ABC News was in relation to Disney as a whole some years ago when he was flipping through the annual report and saw that he was many, many pages into it before ABC News received a mention.

The dilemma stems from the fact that the media giants are primarily entertainment companies and thus have to make money, Mr. Koppel said.

[formercia]

12. The solution:

Don't buy their product.

If you have little kids,read them the original uncopyrighted fairytales from old books.

There was once life before Disney.