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Salon Interview With Head Of MPAA
awaterl writes "Salon Magazine is featuring an interview with MPAA president Jack Valenti, who has never downloaded an MP3, but does 'have staff members who have.' An interesting interview that provides insight into the mind of an aging guy who is honestly doing what he believes to be right, but cannot see why others might consider him clueless. "
Why then, do you charge different prices in different countries?
Because of different distribution costs in those countries. Different markets have different markups because each market has it's own distribution system which requires different markups so that the people along that distribution chain can be paid for their work.
(This is the standard reason given by most hardware manufacturers as to why PCs cost about 50% more in certain parts of the world than in others.)
Region codes exist on DVDs in order to prevent retail marketers from circumventing their own internal distribution model. That is, the distributors that the studios deal with to distribute materials around the world pretty much demanded that some sort of region code be added so that the distributors can maintain their effective market position, rather than be bypassed by the store fronts who could otherwise buy the materials from a distributor in another country and save money.
And the total number of arrests in Hong Kong would be?
They're working with the PRC in order to raise awareness of copyright issues in Hong Kong. However, the MPAA does not control China, and so negotiations are necessarly on-going.
And your reply to the prosecutor who said they did it at your request would be?
The prosecutor was made aware of the violation of copyright law. But the MPAA doesn't control the Noregian government or their prosecutors; they can only lodge a complaint.
So you do agree that once you've bought the DVD drive and the DVD disk, you have the right to use whatever tools you want to view it on a Linux computer?
Of course. However, you do not have the right to distribute those tools, or to repurpose those tools to violate studio's intellectual property rights by copying the tracks off the DVD for potential redistribution across the 'net.
One thing that Mr. Valenti does get is the explosive nature of bandwidth over the Internet. That is, while now it is impractical to download a 10gb movie file, tomorrow better compression technology and higher bandwidths will make it trivial to do. Just as 10 years ago, the thought of storing one record album for playback on your computer was seen as completely impractical--while now, people are routinely storing dozens of CDs on their hard disk for convenient playback.
I personally see a time in the near future where downloading a movie over the net will be nearly as fast as downloading a picture is today. And when that happens--when it is possible to download "Star Wars" off the 'net in a few minutes--either some form of infrastructure needs to be in place to protect the intellectual property rights of studios, or "Star Wars" will make the top "MPEGWAREZ.COM" download for 30 weeks running.
So I personally suspect if you ask the MPAA the above question about Linux, that they'd respond that as soon as they get a request from a closed-source developer who will develop a DVD player for Linux gives them a viable request to build such a beast, they'll gladly license the CSS algorithms. And I suspect given the flap over Linux, they'll even do it at a discount, just so they can prevent the open-source community from producing tools that could be easily repurposed for piracy.
And don't give me the "we won't repurpose the code" bit--remember, the biggest strength in the open source community is it's biggest weakness: that when source is open and free, programmers are able to reuse the code for whatever purpose strikes their fancy.
Final Question: You can even ask the audience or call a friend. Has anyone ever sucessfully used DeCSS to copy a DVD movie to another PC and then play it back?
http://www.dvd-copy.com
Duh.
You know, if you are going to ask hardball questions, try to ask questions that are more hardball than this. Because most of these questions have already been asked and answered elsewhere.
Personally I think that the MPAA has a problem. And I personally think their approach to solving this problem is the wrong approach. Alienating the very technical community they will need in the future to help them maximize the value of their properties is not a good thing to do.
And personally I don't agree with some of the answers I gave above: using technology to protect monopolies is just plain wrong IMHO. But in industries where technology can be used to protect distribution monopolies, it's being used. And that includes country codes in digital media such as Sega games and DVD movies.
Why then, do you charge different prices in different countries?
Ummm...
"And in the last several years, we have been intentionally, seriously and energetically concerned with combating theft of our intellectual property."
And the total number of arrests in Hong Kong would be?
Ummm...
What about the arrest of Jon Johansen, the Norwegian teenager partly responsible for DeCSS: did the MPAA have anything to do with it?
That was done by Norwegian prosecutors. We were not involved in that.
And your reply to the prosecutor who said they did it at your request would be?
Ummm...
So what constitutes fair use of a DVD in your eyes -- besides simply buying a DVD and using one of the MPAA's authorized players?
Any use by which you buy it at a price.
So you do agree that once you've bought the DVD drive and the DVD disk, you have the right to use whatever tools you want to view it on a Linux computer?
Ummm...
Final Question: You can even ask the audience or call a friend. Has anyone ever sucessfully used DeCSS to copy a DVD movie to another PC and then play it back?
Ummm...
well, that was a fun show, any comments from the audience?
"Is it true that when President Kennedy was gunned down, Valenti was six cars behind him."
Yes.
Now that's an alibi. Oh well, so much for that theory...
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