1. Direct Communication: Direct communication methods such as letters and emails were used to converge support against SOPA and PIPA Act. Lobbying: The case demonstrates an active use of lobbying using “new media”. They spent a significant amount of their revenues on lobbying against Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and keep safe Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Social media Tactics: They substantial used social media to lure people and rally mass support in opposition of SOPA and PIPA. 2. They lobbied strongly in support of those congressmen who wanted to make some major changes in the Acts. They informed the general public, the senates and the legislatures about the laws through lobbying, direct communication, and social media. “New
media” made sure that they appeared by strong legislators and senates who totally support their cause. They used the right political tactics in opposing the SOPA and PIPA Acts. 3. The way of mailing different the candidate of Congress is very powerful as it leaves a personal impression. The best way of showing concern was by spending a huge amount of money in promoting the reasons of their actions, and the companies should not show their opposition in open because it leaves a negative impact on the public. 4. If any business gets stuck, then there are other ways to survive. They should have political contacts in order to survive and gain profits. The companies should take their stand in open and support it fully with power and money. The companies should follow larger companies.
Stemming from a loose interpretation of the Constitution – and specifically the necessary and proper clause -- congressional oversight is one of many enumerated powers bestowed upon Congress per Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. As the legislative body, Congress is charged with overseeing the inner workings of the Executive Branch and its federal agencies as a part of a system of checks and balances. However, as previously mentioned, this power is one of the implied powers of Congress, thus making it very difficult for many to delineate rightful oversight from reckless meandering. In the Constitution, for example, there is no singular mention of a definitive power such as “congressional oversight.” Consequently, there is no clear set of goals or practices through which Congress can oversee the executive branch. This is where things can become slightly tricky, however.
One is by using specific, convincing, rhetoric, often referred to as “active rhetoric”. For example, on their website, they say: “We need you to take action on your pro-choice beliefs. Every day, anti-choice activists work to take away our right to choose. Pro-choice Americans can never stop standing up for access to abortion, birth control, and sex education. Your action will make a difference for women and families.” This type of rhetoric doesn’t prevent collective action problems, but it does try to combat them. They also give lists of ways you can get involved, providing links to websites that help people get active in protesting abortion clinic violence, defunding, and harassment, among others. Putting the information at people’s fingertips is an incredibly effective way of discouraging collective action problems. People are inherently lazy and self-interested, so going to the trouble to source websites, and search for associated causes and organizations would likely be a huge factor in them saying “oh well, so many other people are helping, I don 't really need to.” Further, they have a donation page that is easily accessible, and prominent on their home
Interest groups, lobbyists, large corporations, and PACs try to influence the congressional committees' bills so they can have a say in the legislative process. When an interest group hears about a bill that is being debated on in a committee, they try to influence a members vote and they try to get a part of the bill changed. For example, a lobbyist came to me on a bill I proposed on making health care plans have no minimum requirement on benefits the company gives to its patients. He told me about how he did not get the right treatments and tests done on diseases he has and now is suffering badly from them. It was because the health plan did not have to give him anything extra. He changed my mind on the bill, and I changed the bill to setting a minimum standard on benefits given to patients.
Through muckraking they were able to enlighten the people of the need for change, and with the help of the people demand and support reform.
Change.org is an online petition tool with over 68 million users and counting. Change.org users can either support causes by signing petitions or create petitions and request signatures. The purpose of Change.org’s website is to increase the number of users in its social network in order for more people to create and sign petitions. Change.org generates and retains a large user base by gaining the trust of a worldwide audience, inspiring users to action and retaining users through an effective website design. For profit, Change.org depends on large organizations like Amnesty International and the Humane Society to buy advertising to support their petitions. Thus, its website not only recruits more users but also convinces large organizations to buy additional advertising.
Business Tort Michael Robertson is the CEO of MP3.com. Over the past few years, he has established a flourishing business, which had a market value of around $1.8 Billion. In February 2002, a case was filed against mp3.com by a nonprofit trade organization that represents the recording industry, namely the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Robertson claimed that RIAA was presenting a false picture to his stockholders and lying to his partners. RIAA sued him for copyright violation. Robertson sued them back on charges of defamation, trade libel, intrusion with potential economic benefit, and undue business practices. If the situation is analyzed, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) suit against MP3.com actually points out the fact that Mp3.com had illegally copied around 45,000 CDs. Through this, MP3.com could offer an instant "Beam-it" feature that would upload the contents of the CDs from your personal library to MP3.com's Website. Beam-it software is a revolutionary program that lets MP3.com instantly identify the CDs you own so they can add them to your My.MP3.com account. With Beam-it, a visitor never has to upload song files or convert their CDs to MP3s. There's no ripping or encoding involved. While it takes hours to upload an album to other sites, Beam-it allows one to start listening to music from their My.MP3 account in less than a minute. Hence, users can store their music online and listen to it from anywhere. Record companies all over the world carried out a large- scale revolt. There were press releases against this venture. Artists and singers favored the record companies whose profits started to fall. Everyone thought MP3.com was becoming a giant in the music world, just like Micr...
SOPA aroused public attention from a wide range of protests though it originally aimed to help online business damaged by piracy. On January 18, 2012, websites like Google, Reddit, Wikipedia were all blackout and drew great public attention. According to the announcement left on Wikipedia’s website, they were in protest against Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which “has the potential to significantly change the way that information can be shared through the Internet.”(Wikipedia, 1) SOPA is designed to tackle the problem of websites that provide illegal download of pirated movies, music and other products. For websites consist of user upload materials like Youtube and Facebook, they are responsible for all the materials on their web...
The entertainment industry and many musicians regarded P2P as a big crisis for copyright, so that they sued the company that produced Napster. “Anger leads Metallica to the Internet,” an article by Karen Schubert in USA TODAY, noticed that heavy-metal band Metallica was suing Napster. And now some people in the music industry are fighting with a distributor of P2P software even in the Supreme Court, and lobbying to outlaw P2P technology. In “File sharing goes to High Court,” USA ...
The pharmaceutical industry has a high stake in the passage of laws and they protect their interests by maintaining a substantial presence of lobbyists. In 2010, there were approximately 3,000 health care lobbyists in Washington (Attkisson). Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is a trade group that represents 48 pharmaceutical companies and is one of the largest lobbying groups in Washington. They currently represent some of the largest pharmaceutical companies including Bayer HealthCare LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., and Pfizer (PhRMA).
The lead Senate sponsors were Ted Kennedy and Orin Hatch. (Questions and Answers, Map of the RFRA) Among the House sponsors were Newt Gingrich and Barny Frank. Questions and Answers, Map of the RFRA. This act was enacted for one main reason.
Lobbyists advocate on behalf of the group's interests. Lobbying can be done directly or indirectly, and can be aimed at any branch or level of government. Generally, lobbyists contact members of Congress to give them information about their cause. They give details about the effects of legislation they wish to pass or enforce. Lobbyists must present the information in the most factual way possible, while trying to convince the legislator of their point of view. The information given cannot be misleading as a lobbyist wants to keep a level of confidence with the politician. Among the information given, a lobbyist must include not only basic information about the issue but also why their position is best. They must tell why and how taking their position will benefit the legislator. Lobbyists must give the politicians political cues, telling them what they have at stake and how the issue relates to their other known inter...
Proposed legislation is a bill that in under consideration. The bill will not become a law until the legislature passes it, and in some cases it also has to be approved by an executive. People need to be aware on various issues such as political climate, social justice, and cultural values. There are various action plans in order to get proposed legislation passed. The three action plans that this paper will focus on are earned media, paid media, and grassroots lobbying.
The “advocacy explosion” in the United States in the 20th century has been caused by the extreme increase in the number of interest groups in the United States. The general public views the increase and the groups themselves as a cancer that has come to the body of American politics and is spreading. The explosion in the number of interest groups and interest group members and finances has had an effect on the decline of the American political party and partisanship, the effect on democracy and the public interest, and the bias that has come with interest group competition.
On November 16th, 2004, the MPAA announced it would begin launching lawsuits against a select group of P2P users accused of possessing and/or transmitting copyrighted films. These lawsuits, in the same vain as the RIAA’s ongoing legal offensive, are meant to intimidate other P2P users to cease and desist any illegal activities involving movies[1].
The theme of this specific TED talk can be categorized as inspirational and persuasive. This talk exposed how a slice of wealthy Americans has managed to take political control over the our voices with the money and time they fund to bring their parties back in power. It was a pleasant and inspirational talk about how we as Americans have the ability to change how politics work. We have the power to bring politics back in the hands of the majority of the citizens.