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Tell us what you really think, Doug - January 30, 2007

Doug Lowenstein had something to get off his chest.

Speaking at his last official event as the head of the videogame trade association Tuesday (before heading off to lead a new org for the private equity industry) Lowenstein had some choice words for those who think U.S. copyright laws have become too restrictive and need revising.

“In my twelve and a half years representing the interactive entertainment industry, I’ve been constantly amazed by the efforts of copyright troglodytes who think we need to completely rewrite copyright law in this country,” Lowenstein marveled. “It’s the same battle year after year, as if somehow the growth and the jobs that we’re creating are not a good thing and we need to change the law to provide less protection. It just defies logic.”

The occasion for Lowenstein to express his amazement was a presser in the bowels of the U.S. Capitol building to trumpet the release of a new report trumpeting the “growth and jobs” contributed to the U.S. economy by the videogame and other “copyright industries.”

The report was sponsored by the videogame and other copyright industries.

Lowenstein clarified later he was not referring to any particular troglodyte, but rather to the “class of people” with the troglodytic tendency to question the need for toothsome copyright laws and rigorous enforcement.

You know who you are.

The funniest thing about Lowenstein’s comments, however, was the set up:

“This is my last press conference as head of the Entertainment Software Assn.,” he began, preparing his audience to brace. “But before I go, there’s something I’d like to say…”

He then proceeded to say more or less the sort of thing he’d been saying the past 12 and a half years.

He may have felt the “troglodyte” bit was new, and deserved the build up, but over the years he’d called the “class of people” in question just about everything else you can print in the newspaper—and some things you can’t.

Unlike many others in Washington, Lowenstein was rarely one to mince words.

He was even capable of showing genuine anger and exasperation, the sort of emotions most people in town try to hide.

He liked to get his name in the paper, but he could be just as short with a reporter as with anyone else. If he thought your question was stupid, you knew it.

Those tendencies often gave fits to his PR people—who tended not to last long. But they made for great and entertaining copy, as well as a reliably unvarnished take on events.

For reporters, the digital copyright beat will certainly be the poorer without Doug Lowenstein to kick us around anymore.

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