MPA Industry Champion Award Recipient Rep. Darrell Issa: From Digital Pirates to Real-Life Mavericks
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is the recipient of the 2025 Motion Pictures Association’s Industry Champion Award, recognized for his efforts to strengthen copyright protections, spur innovation, and preserve free expression. As chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, Issa has been at the forefront of legislative efforts to combat digital piracy and address emerging challenges posed by artificial intelligence to the entertainment industry.
As a California resident and representative, Issa is no stranger to the entertainment industry or its importance to the American economy, and as an engine of creativity, inspiration, and innovation. He also happens to live in the same district as a real-life Maverick, a man who actually lived the life of the character that made Tom Cruise a global superstar in 1986.
We spoke to Rep. Issa about site blocking, artificial intelligence, protecting creators, and why Top Gun isn’t nearly as unrealistic as you might think.
When do you expect to introduce your site-blocking legislation this congressional cycle?
We expect to launch our judicial site blocking legislation in late September or early October. We’ve done the due diligence. We’ve had both field hearings and, quite candidly, we’ve traveled all over the world to see how other countries are doing it.
Speaking of that, many other countries, including Mexico, Canada, Australia, the UK, Italy, Brazil, and South Korea, have site blocking, while the United States doesn’t. How would you explain that to people who don’t want their favorite films and TV shows pirated?
Nobody wants—no country, no legislature—to allow copyright violations. In almost every case, the violations come from outside the country. We are a land of many rights. Our constitutional rights, and particularly our Bill of Rights, tend to err toward not doing things without due diligence, without court oversight, without a decision by a judge and/or jury. The problem arises when someone pops up on the internet at a different ISP or, at the very least, a different IP address, evading the ability to reach a judge in real-time; you can’t use a slow system.
How do we quicken our ability to block piracy sites?
We must use our system, which ensures that there will be a full opportunity for the defendant to appear and a full opportunity for the judge to make a decision. The difference here is that once the decision is made, we want to be able to trace, follow, and enforce that without having to go through that process again. You can understand if you’re watching a mixed martial arts fight – it’s like that scene from Top Gun when the guy says, “I’ll be there in five minutes,” and the response is, “It’ll be over in two.” You can’t get to a judge, even on an emergency basis, in sufficient time to stop these live broadcasts from being destroyed.
How do you see AI intersecting with copyright law? Do you feel new legislation is needed?
I think there is a full answer. Whenever we introduce new laws, we must build upon existing laws, case law, and common law. When we look at copyright, we have a long tradition of rights, laws, and timelines. We also have very unique American fair use standards. When we get to AI, we need to build on it exactly that way, recognizing that there will be some fair use of information. But, when someone tries to monetize and is clearly building on your copyrighted material, we need to have the same recourse that you’ve had historically, either a compulsory license or a willing buyer, willing seller.
Can you give me an example?
I’ll give you one that actors and directors understand: For generations, lookalikes and recreations were almost never the real thing, and actors had to play themselves. With deep fakes that’s no longer out of bounds, you can actually recreate them. Some of our music people are recreating themselves. Billy Joel is recreating not just himself, but three versions of himself in a video album, each at a different age and playing on three different pianos. And none of them is Billy Joel.
Is this related to your work on the PADRE Act?
Yes. When we get to PADRE – people like Lainey Wilson, her voice is better known than her likeness, but her voice and likeness have been flat-out stolen and used commercially for things she has nothing to do with, wasn’t paid for, and wouldn’t approve. Yet people think they’re buying something promoted by one of the great rising music writers and performers. When you see these actual stories of the rip-off, you realize that AI isn’t coming – AI has already hurt and stolen in a way that we must protect, and we must do it in this Congress.
What about internet service providers’ reluctance to block piracy sites?
The way we’ve put together the bill and the way we’ve conducted the hearings have garnered buy-in from major cable companies. We don’t have them all and don’t expect to get them all, but we have enough to prove that it’s not overly burdensome. There will be a first round of judicial action. That action will give immunity to those providers for executing what is, in fact, a judge’s court order. Will there be times when, eventually, after a hundred or a thousand whack-a-moles of knocking down substantially the same person but changing and morphing, you might get a little bit of over-blocking? It can happen. However, on balance, we are giving the ISPs the absolute right to protect themselves and the ability to rectify if they are satisfied that the entity is not the one subject to the court order.
And this would limit piracy sites to the point where they’re no longer capable of causing large-scale damage to creators and the industry at large?
Don’t expect 100% success. What we’re going to do is make it so much more expensive. We’re going to eliminate 95-96% of the worst, the most frequent ones. Most of these blocks will be from foreign actors who will never appear in court, and we cannot obtain any compensation from them. Therefore, the blocking is the only remedy.
Let’s pivot from the law to the movies you’re trying to protect—do you have a favorite film?
There are two, and there’s a reason I’ll use two. One of the great all-time classics is The Godfather, one and two – not three, and Francis Ford Coppola would agree with me. The story, the depth of what it’s about, what it says about America—it’s tells so many stories and does it so well. It’s the real test of a movie – you could literally sit down and watch it again a year after you’ve watched it and enjoy it.
No argument here. Your second?
The second one is Top Gun, for a completely different reason. I love that movie, but I love it more now because in my district, I have a man named Captain Royce Williams. When he was a Navy Lieutenant, Royce Williams flew off the Oriskany on November 18th, 1952, and he and one wingman encountered seven MiG-15s. He smoked one, and his wingmen followed it down. Instead of staying with his wingmen, he was engaged in the longest over-territory dogfight of the Korean conflict for the next 35 minutes.
Incredible. That sounds very Top Gun…
When he ran out of ammo, got into the clouds, and escaped what was left of the MIGs, he had 263 holes in his aircraft when he landed on the Oriskany, just like the later movie. His plane was shot to hell. He landed at twice the speed because he had no flaps, and just barely hit the cable, surviving. They then classified that mission, and he couldn’t tell anyone about it for decades because those were Russians out on a kill mission. He not only killed them, but only one made it home.
Every time I get to see Top Gun, I know that Captain Royce Williams was the real Top Gun. He was the real maverick. When people complain that Top Gun is unrealistic, it turns out that it’s not. There is real valor; those are real fights, and some of them really happened.
Featured image: ep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) speaks to the media during a news conference May 28, 2010 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Issa spoke on the allegation about the job offer by the White House to Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) in exchange his drop-out from the Democratic senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images).
