IP Democracy: EFF: MPAA Broadcast Flag Efforts Foundering

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the MPAA’s efforts to revive the broadcast flag are foundering in Congress. Despite MPAA’s initial success in gaining support for the flag in the House, a letter-writing campaign spurred by the EFF seems to have spooked some members.

In a bit of legislative gymnastics on the Senate side, the MPAA had hoped to attach a flag amendment to the Reconciliation bill, and if that doesn’t succeed, run a risky last-minute gambit of attaching the amendment to the bill on the Senate floor. But it only takes one Senator to challenge a non-budgetary item attached to the bill, and if the parlimentarian agrees to the challenge, then a super-majority, or 60 senators have to vote to keep the amendment attached. Long odds for the MPAA.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on October 20, 2005 7:51 AM to IP Democracy