Legislation to regulate pro boxing may derail new copyright bills:

It seems that the copyright bills recently passed in the Senate could still be derailed when they come back to the House for approval. This approval is necessary because of minor differences between the Senate and House versions, even though they have both been passed already. When the pared-down IPPA was passed in the Senate, as we have been reporting on here for the last few days, the Senators also attached a completely unrelated bill to the copyright legislation concerning regulation on professional boxing. It seems that this attached boxing legislation is actually somewhat controversial and may prove to be the undoing of the entire lot of new laws:

Provisions of the Senate copyright bill previously passed under other legislation in the House but would need to be approved again because of minor differences between the bills. Industry and consumer lobbyists, however, believe the copyright proposals could be derailed in the House because of unrelated boxing reforms added to the measure.

"We'll see how this plays out," said Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the largest record labels. "They'll either work it out in December or early next year."

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), appended a proposal to create a three-person commission — appointed by the president — to license boxers, managers, promoters and sanctioning organizations.
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"I don't know whether this is a poison pill for the bill," said Alan Davidson, associate director for the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology. "These were a carefully crafted set of copyright provisions, but it's an open question whether the House will accept them with the boxing legislation attached."

Yahoo! News - Boxing Dispute Clouds Copyright Bill.

Here's more on the boxing legislation and how it ended up attached to the copyright bills, good 'ol fashioned tough-guy politics, McCain style, may have backfired:

A fight between two powerful lawmakers over boxing reform legislation might have KO'd the Family Movie Act and a bill that makes it a federal crime to camcord a movie.

The dispute between Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, over McCain's legislation federalizing boxing regulation went into the final rounds Saturday and ended the attempt to get the legislation through in the last-minute rush before lawmakers go home, according to congressional and industry sources. McCain chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, and Barton chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

McCain held up the intellectual property legislation as leverage to get Barton to agree to his boxing-reform bill. In the end neither lawmaker was willing to go to a neutral corner or throw in the towel until it was too late. At the last minute the legislation made it through the Senate, but there wasn't time to get it through the House.

While the bill failed to win approval in this lame-duck session, it could be resuscitated if lawmakers return Dec. 6 to attempt to finish work on the intelligence agency overhaul.

Backstage.com article: Two Movie-Related Bills in Limbo.