Why should the LA Entertainment industry care about international trade problems
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It may be high time that political leaders who hail from L.A. take note of problems in international trade that hit home to the region’s most important industry – entertainment.
Open and fair competition has always been the driving force behind American innovation, especially when it comes to developing and marketing new products that enhance our enjoyment of movies and other entertainment media. Every time there is an electronics industry advance in home entertainment apparatus, DVD and CD sales take off as consumers embrace the new technology to view and listen to their favorite movies and music. All this plays very well in the film and recording industries that call Los Angeles home ...
It may be high time that political leaders who hail from L.A. take note of problems in international trade that hit home to the region’s most important industry – entertainment.
Open and fair competition has always been the driving force behind American innovation, especially when it comes to developing and marketing new products that enhance our enjoyment of movies and other entertainment media. Every time there is an electronics industry advance in home entertainment apparatus, DVD and CD sales take off as consumers embrace the new technology to view and listen to their favorite movies and music. All this plays very well in the film and recording industries that call Los Angeles home.
But when events conspire to hinder technological advances or to broaden the availability of new entertainment products, the fortunes of L.A.’s entertainment industry can be similarly stifled; and that may be what’s happening as the European Union (EU) meddles in the affairs of American business such as the licensing and marketing of HD DVD and the Sony-led consortium’s Blu-ray Disc entertainment format.
The EU is holding hostage the distribution of entertainment products using these technologies while they investigate licensing terms, which according to a European Commission spokesman, could break EU competition rules. The licensing of these formats here in the USA have already been approved by American authorities which have determined that the business practices of the developers of these technologies pose no threat to fair competition.
So why the European holdup? Plain and simple, to create an unfair competitive playing field abroad to the benefit of foreign entertainment product makers and the detriment of not only our American electronics industry, but L.A.’s own entertainment industry.
The problem of EU interference is not limited to entertainment technology. EU meddling, court decisions, rules and other regulatory burdens have affected most major American industrial sectors from agriculture to pharmaceuticals. In response there are many groups that have begun urging our elected officials in Washington to do something about this problem.
Americans for Technology Leadership has been joined by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the California Chamber of Commerce among others, to urge Los Angeles area Congressman Howard Berman, who sits on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, to begin investigating this matter. Hopefully other business groups in the Los Angeles area will add their voices to those who have already spoken up, and contact the Congressman and ask him to look out for American and Los Angeles business interests when it comes to international trade and problems created by the European Union.
Posted by: LesSpahnn on Friday, November 03, 2006 - 06:25 PM
