Last week, statistics were released on who was behind the lobbying efforts to pass those bills and how much money was spent. Close to half-a-million dollars was spent solely to encourage the passage of these two bills through Congress. Twenty-eight Washington DC lobbying firms were paid to contact Congress in various ways to convince Senators and Representatives that it was vital to the interests of the US to pass these bills. The companies behind these failed lobbying efforts, in decreasing order of amount paid, were Disney, News Corp (Fox), Comcast, CBS, Time Warner and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. Comcast was the most diverse in its payments, paying 19 different lobbying firms.
In contrast, those who were opposed to the bill eschewed paying lobbying firms and went for a more grassroots effort, encouraging people by way of "blackout" events to contact their Representatives and Senators in Congress directly and let them know their opposition to SOPA and PIPA. Though some ad revenue may have been lost by a few companies who chose to blackout their web sites completely, most displayed an anti-SOPA/anti-PIPA message with a black background either as a landing page from which the normal web site could be accessed or as a banner on all pages. Wikipedia was one of the few that actually shut down their entire website for a day; however, because Wikipedia does not derive any revenue from display ads, it's not clear what the cost of such an action was.
Still, the difference and the impact are clear. Despite the money spent in lobbying Congress for one point of view, the other point of view succeeded because of a few simple media events. It is interesting to note that the proponents of these bills whose business is broadcast news neglected to cover the situation at all on their normal evening news broadcasts, though, oddly enough, did do so with their online outlets.
Kimberly Dovander
Kimberly is the pro blogger in the WHS family. WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr... It doesn't matter - she knows them all. Send her a question, or a drop a line in the comment section below, and she'll get back to you.
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