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Congress Asked to Return Dirty MPAA Money

mpaaOn Sunday we reported on a “we the people” petition asking the White House to investigate the MPAA’s alleged bribery practices.

Today the petition reached its goal of 25.000 votes, but that’s not the only pressure that Washington is facing over the issue.

Before the Obama Administration has a chance to respond to the petition, several citizen rights groups are gearing up to put pressure on Congress to return “Hollywood’s dirty money”.

“The MPAA is so brazen in its efforts to buy legislation with campaign cash that its leader, himself a former senator, sees nothing wrong with threatening legislators on national TV,” said Free Press Action Fund President Craig Aaron today.

“We think it’s time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale. The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA’s tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship.

Now that various congressmen reconsidered their positions on the controversial PIPA and SOPA bills, Free Press thinks they are ready for the next step.

“Last week’s unprecedented grassroots uprising, in which millions mobilized against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act , clearly got Washington’s attention. And we’ve since seen dozens of legislators scrambling to show they were really against these bills all along. But the real test is whether they will put their money where their mouths are by returning Hollywood’s dirty money,” Aaron concludes.

It will be interesting to see how Congress responds to this call for refunds. To be continued.

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  • As

    nothings will happen , mpaa have money so own everythings and everyone

    • Comartemis

      The tech companies have far FAR more money than the MPAA, a consequence of being global enterprises while the MPAA is a purely American trade group. Apple could buy Hollywood and all their holdings by itself and have a few billion in change if they were allowed to.

      • Erthwjim

        MPAA actually has representation around the world, they just go by other names like MPA. Same with the RIAA, they have representation around the world but go by other names.

      • ICry

        you really think a tech company like Apple would do something like that ? personally i believe they’ve poured in equal amounts of money to get bills like sopa/pipa up and running

        • Guest

          You are not wrong. Microsoft too had a hand in boosting the coffers.

        • Anonymous

          He was simply stating that apple had the cash to do it, not whether they would or not. If you don’t believe they have enough money, check out the financial details of the company. Not just revenue and things like that but the amount people has invested in the company. They exceeded ExxonMobil to become the worlds biggest company in terms of market capitalization. They are currently worth $337bn

      • Guest

        Yes but they don’t invest in protest as much as in lobbying.

        http://wn.com/Fight_ACTA

      • Alux

        The google bosses could buy up the entire music business just using their own personal fortunes and they’ve brought it up before. Not that they would do it, just that they could.

      • Anonymous

        They do not give congress anywhere near the same amount.

        Most of the money goes to the same party as the senator who stopped the bill with a hold.

    • BillyB
      • Anonymous

        What date was the blackout?

        What date was that article published?

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay

    I love how all of the ones supporting SOPA can not catch a break from their shady laundry airing into the light.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002639684444 Ryan Smith

    lmao at goatseAA

  • http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

    Paybacks a bitch isn’t it. This made my day lol.

  • What

    This is actually cute… MPAA? What about arms manufacturers, drug companies, HMOs, and so on?

    “Lobby” is the cutesy word used for giving and accepting bribes, your (and most of the modern world) political system works with this in mind.

    Is a good initiative, but far too naive.

    • http://twitter.com/erikqj Erik Q.J.

      You have to strike the blow when and where they open their guard. It doesn’t matter that you’d rather go for the chin; if a kidney is all that’s on offer, a blow to the kidney it is. The MPAA opened the guard wide on the entire lobby system. A kidney blow may not take the system down, but it’ll hurt, and it’ll contribute to fatigue. Land it hard enough, and they may be flustered into other screw ups.

      OK, enough with the boxing metaphor. Let’s do karate: A kick to the knees may not… No? Really? Enough with the metaphors? Yeah, I’ve been told I overdo it sometimes.

    • http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja

      Srsly? So if I fight rape with all my resources I’m cute because I’m not fighting genocide? If I fight SOPA I’m cute because I’m not fighting censorship in Syria? What kind of logic is yours?!

      Pro-tip: there are several ppl fighting on multiple ends, this specific end (MAFIAA bribery) got one huge momentum thanks to Dodd. Sun Tzu, my friend. You don’t attack an army where it’s strong, you attack in the borders and in their supply lines, to weaken them slowly till total destruction.

  • Sparx10

    Those bastards won’t just give up though, there’s going to be something else next..

  • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

    If these Congressmen return the cash or publicly donates it to charity (and I don’t mean the Welfare Fund for Retired Congressmen), then they MAY be able to persuade some people that the USA has some leaning towards becoming a democracy.

    But returning cash only to the MPAA is insufficient on its own. The USA must now abandon its lobbying system and its reliance on private donations of cash to fund politicians.

    Any failure to do ALL of the above will indicate that the USA is not a democracy, but remains a “corruptocracy” in which politicians regardless of Party affiliation and the laws they pass are bought and paid for by the rich – and the People’s vote is increasingly meaningless.

    Here’s the list of the biggest political whores in the USA -
    http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1660/912/Congressmen_Bribed_for_SOPA_Votes:_List_Of_Names_And_Amounts,_Millions_Each_Sen_Harry_Reid_D,_NV_3,502,624….html

    • Victorsmegma

      The US isn’t a democracy and never was. The US is a republic. More specifically a democratic republic.
      An example of the difference would be…..
      In a democracy if 51% of the voters decide it should be legal to kill black people for sport, then its legal to kill black people for sport.
      In a democratic republic if 51% of the voters decide it should be legal to kill black people for sport, its still illegal because there is a set of unchangeable rules that say its wrong.
      Most people have no idea what they are talking about when they say they want a democratic form of government. Democracies ALWAYS self destruct when the voters vote themselves entitlements the government can’t afford.
      Whenever US politicians ignore the rules of the republic and start acting in a democratic manner, the government goes broke and the economy goes in the toilet. Ring any bells?

  • Destroy ACTA now!

    ACTA: Source Wikipedia…

    Newspapers reported that the draft agreement would empower security officials at airports and other international borders to conduct random ex officio searches of laptops, MP3 players, and cellular phones for illegally downloaded or “ripped” music and movies. Travellers with infringing content would be subject to a fine and may have their devices confiscated or destroyed.

    The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has published “Speak out against ACTA”, stating that the ACTA threatens free software by creating a culture “in which the freedom that is required to produce free software is seen as dangerous and threatening rather than creative, innovative, and exciting.”[10] ACTA would also require that existing ISPs no longer host free software that can access copyrighted media; this would substantially affect many sites that offer free software or host software projects such as SourceForge. Specifically, the FSF argues that ACTA will make it more difficult and expensive to distribute free software via file sharing and P2P technologies like BitTorrent, which are currently used to distribute large amounts of free software. The FSF also argues that ACTA will make it harder for users of free operating systems to play non-free media because DRM protected media would not be legally playable with free software.

  • Rekrul

    “We think it’s time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale.”

    But they ARE for sale…

    The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA’s tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship.”

    The word “bribed” was misspelled.

    It will be interesting to see how Congress responds to this call for refunds.

    Most likely they will respond with derisive laughter.

    • iCry

      penis

      see, i can also post unproductive comments

      • Danny

        I can too!

        • BillyB

          No you can’t.

  • Peen

    What would be nice is if these so called hacktivists, that is if they are actually elite did something worth while. Because knocking off a website doesn’t do anything for anyone really. Is if they decided to put their skills to good use find out who is being paid off by the mpaa/riaa and publicly listed these bribed officials and showed everyone what kind of payoffs they were actually getting.

    It’s time people started naming and shaming, try finding out who paid off the FBI for raids against Megaupload, see which congressmen are being paid for sopa support.

    Real stuff not packet kiddies with a bunch of dos bots against a website.

    • Destroy ACTA now!

      Agreed! Anony may think they’re not seen as a joke but they will be if they just keep knocking websites down for a few hours.

    • http://twitter.com/erikqj Erik Q.J.

      The vast majority of Anonymous (and other “hacktivists) are amateurs, and are best likened to demonstrators blocking or clogging the entrance to a building. Through sheer numbers, they overwhelm the capacity for traffic to a website. This is done using a simple piece of software that can be easily downloaded, installed, and run. Essentially, they willingly and knowingly contribute their computer as a bot. This is somewhat risky. The protection is in the numbers; they can’t prosecute everyone. Hiding their IP isn’t an option for most (it takes more than just a regular proxy), and the courts tend to fall short of appreciating the demonstrator analogy.

      Respect Anonymous for what they are: Demonstrators in an environment in which demonstrations are strictly illegal.

      There are of course hardcore hackers with connections to Anonymous, but they don’t do their “real” illegal hacking/cracking under the flag of Anonymous. “The real stuff”, as you call it, can be done, but it’s difficult, and the risks are high – we’re talking about serious prison time, prison being an environment in which most nerds suspect they won’t do well. The biggest practical hindrance would be finding the useful stuff during the crack, among the enormous amounts of data that will be there. Downloading it all would be impossible, and even if it was possible, they’d still have to sift through all the data.

      If anything comes, from either crackers (possible, but unlikely) or whistleblowers (more likely), it’ll come through Wikileaks, so that’s where you want to keep your attention.

    • Guest

      I don’t think MAFIAA buys the goverment on the internet.

  • monkeyslap

    “We think it’s time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale. The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA’s tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship.”

    But our U.S. congress bullies OTHER countries into supporting censorship by doing things like threatening trade sanctions. Not to mention the fact they gave a big ‘FUCK YOU’ to the wold showing they don’t need PIPA/SOPA by having Megaupload taken down and it’s people arrested. The god damn MPAA is going to have their way no matter what, with or without PIPA/SOPA.

    It is far too often our elected officials don’t vote on new bills/laws because they firmly believe in them. They do it because the people the bills/laws will favor pay them to. It’s time they stop giving in to the highest bidder and start listening to their hearts and WE THE PEOPLE.

  • Anonymous

    the money will just move from the campaign into a “Super-PAC”

    the US is corrupt beyond repair.

    • Anonymous

      I think you are right on the money (pun intended) on both both points.

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  • Tryo_legend

    But they are~ anon is posting some of their personal information online~ in association with sopa and pipa

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PXX4S66KOUIGIKTTIMV3CBGO7Y Colin

    How can the congreemen return the money to the MAFIAA when they’ve already spent it on their campaigns, or maybe holidays and whores?

    • BillyB

      I hate the the thought of them having any of the above at my expense.

  • Anonymous

    Return the money? Please don’t. The less money the MPAA has, the less damage it can do.

    Either keep it, or donate it to something like the EFF.

  • Bdb1958

    just keep pirating

  • Cogitoergocogitosum

    Well, I highly doubt any politicians are “scrambling to show they were against it all along”. I think they pretend to be where the people want them to be. Its just another win-your-vote campaign.

  • Cogitoergocogitosum

    Well, I highly doubt any politicians are “scrambling to show they were against it all along”. I think they pretend to be where the people want them to be. Its just another win-your-vote campaign.

  • Crazmalave

    Greedy politicians should resign. Is it just me or the emblem for the MPAA a goatse?

  • notgoodbuddy

    see try this out. MPAA pays off politicians, Politicians say they will pass the bill up until the last minute, WHEN the OTHER side comes in with more money to vote against it. Politicians get paid from BOTH sides. Now thats a win win . Id say the system is corrupt beyond repair. Only two things that have to happen to repair this mess. Outlaw Lobbying and 4 year term limits. That will just about do it.

  • http://about.me/chrisfink Chris Fink

    but… all their votes ARE for sale. LMAO… have been for years. to say different would be a BLATANT, TOTAL LIE!

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