Whether we contact our representatives or not, the MPA / Disney / etc have deeper pockets than we do.
We've reached the point where a candidate for the senate will only get the nomination and have a chance to be elected if they spend a significant amount of money on their campaign. There's no campaign limits, so if you don't spend much, you're liable to lose.
As a result, the people who run successful campaigns almost always have already agreed to side with the MPA and other interests that have money.
Us telling our legislature we're not happy about it won't help either because, well, what are we going to do? Vote for the person on the other party? Not likely. Vote for another guy? It's unlikely anyone else will even be on the ballot since both the democrats and republicans will avoid having multiple candidates to avoid splitting the vote within the party.
I agree that the problem is really legal at its root, but I think we need better plans than "contact your representative".
Deep pockets are only useful as a proxy for getting people to vote. What means more than deep packets is votes. If we can bring in votes that is far more powerful than money.
So get out there and convince voters that this is an important topic. The law will change fast if congress decides that not changing it will mean they are thrown out and some other person who will replaces them. So long as they think few people care it will get lib service. (also so long as there seem to be a signification amount of people on the other side nothing will change)
This year many high profile campaigns that spent the most money also lost, and the ones that won by spending the most were not "corporate" but were Bernie aligned.
Sanders, despite some reformist tendencies, is a also corporate-aligned. He is a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party and of its pro-corporate leadership; supports the military-industrial complex and most (not all) of its foreign interventions; and recently voted for the CARES act, which transferred huge amounts of wealth to large corporations.
Those "Bernie-aligned" elected members of the house have just recently chosen to support Hundred-Millionaire house member Nanci Pelosi for speaker of the house. They did not even do this in exchange for anything. Other Bernie-aligned representatives, already in office before this year, have also neglected to act against their pro-corporate party line.
So, the moneyed elites can indirectly win even if they ostensibly lose.
> and recently voted for the CARES act, which transferred huge amounts of wealth to large corporations.
That was a payroll support program like every other country did, plus airline bailouts which were good because they have giant union contracts.
CARES is the greatest anti-poverty measure the US has done in a hundred years and probably the largest downward transfer of wealth in the world. You didn't notice because all left-wing commentators decided to lie about it ("we only got $1200 checks") instead of reading about how the unemployment benefit worked.
While you may be able to point to one or two anomalies, we need more than that. If the MPA has the ear of 70% of congress, that's still enough to have their way on legislation, regardless of a few fringe elements.
is not necessarily incorrect. But it is also possible that it is the other way around:
being popular => receiving funding => winning
I.e. candidates which are more popular tend to have an easier time receiving funding. Or, it could be some combination. This would also explain the outcomes you point to.
Has there been even a single move away from ever more draconian copyright? Just the last budget bill had provisions for more criminal enforcement of copyright and with bipartisan support. If this is a slippery slope it's a steady and worryingly unstoppable one so far.
Civil disobedience through distributed systems seems like the only answer right now.
Your legislators can't hear you over the sound of millions of dollars from Hollywood getting deposited in their campaign accounts.
