For all of those with access, I am forwarding this weekly notice because of the great coincidence to several current FW threads: 1. Intellectual property/copyrights 2. Bush Tax Plan and the broader subject of who pays for government 3. Worries about global epidemics and the environment.
Transcripts are provided online. Karen NOW with Bill Moyers, Friday, January 17, 2003 at 9pm on PBS, (Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html) ============================================================= This week on NOW: * In the wake of the Supreme Court decision this week upholding copyright extensions, NOW looks at the digital future of intellectual property and why we should care about who owns Mickey Mouse in TOLLBOOTHS ON THE DIGITAL HIGHWAY. * Bill Moyers interviews Bill Gates, Sr. and Chuck Collins, unexpected advocates of the estate tax and the authors of a new book, WEALTH AND COMMONWEALTH: WHY AMERICA SHOULD TAX ACCUMULATED FORTUNES. * NOW sits down with leading epidemiologist DEVRA DAVIS, who has spent her career researching the effects of the environment on health. ============================================================= TOLLBOOTHS ON THE DIGITAL HIGHWAY This week, by a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court upheld the authority of Congress to extend the term of copyright, giving the Disney Corporation, AOL Time Warner and a host of other huge companies control over the television and movies we see, the music we hear and even the news we get. These mega-media companies spent nearly $150 million dollars over the last 12 years to buy influence in Washington. And in 1998 Congress voted to extend the term of copyright - giving these corporations permission to keep control of intellectual property for much longer than the law had previously allowed and far longer than the framers ever imagined. So why should you care? If you loan a friend your copy of THE SIMPSONS, print an article from a Web site, or want to copy a chapter of a book at the local library, you could be breaking one of those new laws - unless you pay these corporations for what you've been doing all along for free. "Copyright could be used as an instrument of censorship,"! says NYU cultural historian Siva Vaidhyanathan. NOW investigates the future of copyright in the digital age and the debate that has pitted private control against the public interest. ============================================================= BILL GATES, SR. AND CHUCK COLLINS Conservatives call it the Death tax. Lawyers call it the Estate tax. Others call it the Inheritance tax. Therein lies a story of wealth and power. In 2001, after a lengthy campaign hatched by a small group of wealthy families President Bush signed a bill repealing the Estate tax. But now there's a campaign to restore it. The effort is being led, believe it or not, by some of the country's richest people, including Bill Gates Sr., the Patriarch of the Gates family, who heads the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Chuck Collins, an heir to the Oscar Mayer fortune who founded the organization called Responsible Wealth. Bill Moyers interviews Gates and Collins on their new book, WEALTH AND OUR COMMONWEALTH, on why they believe an inheritance tax is fair and responsible. ============================================================= DEVRA DAVIS Devra Davis is a visiting professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, senior advisor to the World Health Organization, and a leading epidemiologist and researcher on the environmental causes of breast cancer and chronic disease. Her book, the National Book Award nominated WHEN SMOKE RAN LIKE WATER, was inspired by the 1948 industrial smog that killed more than 60 people and made an additional 6,000 ill in her hometown of Donora, PA. NOW talks to Davis about studying the effects of the environment on our health. ============================================================= NOW WITH BILL MOYERS continues online at PBS.org (www.pbs.org/now). Log on to the site learn about the history of intellectual property protection; check air quality and other environmental factors in your neighborhood; read more about the past and the future of deadly smog; take a look at who really pays inheritance tax; and more. ============================================================= You have received this e-mail because you asked to be informed of information on upcoming Bill Moyers programs. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the weekly Public Affairs Television newsletter, visit www.pbs.org/now/newsletter.html. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
