We've reported several times on the various take-down notices and site blocking orders dished out by the courts over the last year or so as rights-holders have fought back against services that share or facilitate access to copyrighted material without permission. But an analysis shows that while political donations by Village Roadshow aren't new, they spiked significantly at about the same time the current, tougher legislation was being developed and passed.
Last week, the government passed tougher laws, upping the ante on sites offering copyrighted material by compelling search engines to remove piracy websites from search results – a piece of legislation that I can imagine could be easily abused.
Village Roadshow donated about half a million dollars each year on roughly equal terms to Labor and the Coalition. There are some years when one side of politics scored more that the other. But in 2015-2016, the donations topped $1.2M after pulling right back last year. One assumes that the $1.2M and change delivered Village Roadshow's preferred outcome so there was no need to keep making such generous donations.
Of course, as The Guardian reports – they conducted this important analysis – there's no way of knowing precisely when the donations were made as we lack that kind of transparency in or electoral donation laws. But the provision of donations, more or less on partisan lines when the parliament is tightly balanced, the passing of the laws and their favourability to Village Roadshow is probably just a coincidence – right?
That's not to say the intent of the laws is wrong. But when the forces that influence the drafting and passing of laws are opaque then the purpose of the parliament is tainted. Instead of being our elected officials, the parliament could be seen to be acting in the interests of a small number of paying influential lobbyists who have access to lawmakers many of us can't imagine.
Incidentally, on such matters it is worth writing to your local member. While you may think your one voice isn't influential it is important to have your say and for it to be recorded. Over the last few months, I've written to my local state and federal MPs as well as the local council over a local planning matter. And I wrote an email to my federal MP regarding the new encryption laws being considered.
My MPs both responded personally to my emails.
The power of well-funded lobby groups to influence laws needs to be curbed. While a majority of people in the United States favour tougher gun control laws, the federal government there is hamstrung by politicians who are heavily funded by lobby groups who are happy to maintain the status quo. That's a bad outcome, not just because of the impact of gun crime, but also because the will of the people has been subjugated by a small number of well funded groups.
Are the laws making life harder for content pirates a good thing? My feeling is that they are a good idea although I'd rather see the rights-holders reform their business model to make piracy a less attractive option. But the process, where one group who received substantial benefit from the laws following an opaque donation process, is broken.
Originally published in Lifehacker Australia on 3 December 2018: https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/12/village-roadshow-donated-millions-while-tougher-privacy-laws-were-passed/