Slashdot Mirror
Valenti's "Boston Strangler" Testimony
Seth Schoen writes "'I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.' Jack Valenti said this in 1982 in testimony to the House of
Representatives on why the VCR should be illegal. He also called
the VCR an "avalanche" and a "tidal wave", and said it would make
the film industry "bleed and bleed and hemorrhage". This speech is an
important part of history, yet until today it had never been published
on-line in its entirety. Valenti's testimony was published today by Cryptome.
It's essential background reading if you want to see just how little
the MPAA's arguments have changed in two decades." Compare to the Analog Hole document and they're virtually identical (except Valenti was playing on anti-Japanese sentiment then, and today it's anti-pirate sentiment). Of course, the MPAA was unsuccessful in plugging the "VCR Hole" - insufficient lobbying and clueful judges stopped them. The MPAA successfully adapted to the changing times and today sells about 70 million cassettes for rentals and 600 million cassettes for home viewing every year (both numbers are on the decline due to the rise of DVD).
Quick! Pirate that testimony! Put it on a tshirt! Set it to music, dictate it and sample it!
Remain calm! All is well!
And now the industry makes more money on video rentals than on the theatrical release.
Kind of amazing that they are lobbying so hard against DVD and electronic distribution when any sane person can see the amazing profit potential on the horizon.
Valenti's a nitwit.
load "windows7"
They like computers, it's just that they want to control your computer down to the hardware. Fuck them. An industry-wide consortium should not be this one-sided and so blatently against consumer rights.
Hammer of Truth
Even in 1982!
Quote from the article:
"And I think that if a film is marginal, it needs those extra categories to get in. It needs that home box office. It needs that cassette sale to get out of the red or maybe even right up to network television sale. Maybe that is the thing that pushes it into the black. It is very simple. The more films that are in the black, the more films are made, the more men and women are employed by the film industry. "
Yup. Some things produced are so marginal they need every avenue available to them to make their money, but what does the RIAA/MPAA want to do? strangle it with licensing fees... bah, humbug!
Valenti -- "Now, they are up to 6 hours. They are going to be up to 24 hours. Pretty soon, they will have a cassette that will record all year long"
And it only takes 2 days to rewind.
Best Windows Freeware
the relative ease to which you can now transfer content between people. Sure, you could make VHS copies of movies in your basement, but you were still limited to physical distribution. Now that distribution is effectively uncapped, the MPAA and RIAA realize their nest eggs are being poached.
The biggest problem with all of this is the lack of concern of the RIAA/MPAA towards their customers. Sure, you will always have a few people hacking and stealing content, but if the movie/music industry realized that the standard of economy is based on the supply/demand chain, they would realize a better way to combat this 'theft'.
I, myself, am an avid DVD-collector, and have quite a repository built. I have no qualms with paying good money to buy a good movie. But what I do expect is for the MPAA to be competitive. Since there are no other options THAN the MPAA, we are all held up to paying 20-35$ for a DVD, which in all reality may only be worth 15-20$. What the MPAA must realize is that their competition is now the free route, and the only way to combat this is to
a) lower prices
b) provide extras to create a competitive advantage
I'd surely shell out 14 bucks to watch AoTC on a big screen over having to watch a pirated version that shakes like a hyperactive child sucking on a lollipop. Sure, there will be the cheapskates that will watch it for free, but those were never really customers of the MPAA anyway.
The MPAA needs to get back to the business of making movies, and distributing the "extras" that make it worthwhile buying.
[VALENTI:] I am going to stand, if you don't mind, Mr. Chairman, cause I have what is known as "visual aids." I know they are visual; whether they are aids or not is something you will have to determine later on.
Mr. KASTENMEIER. And whether they are copyrighted or not.
That is priceless, and Valenti just ignores him and presses on as if nothing happened!
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
The media industry (music and film) are so stangnent it's unbelievable.
MP3 and digital music was (actually still is) a chance for them to make lots of money in new ways.
The same goes for digital TV/films, yet they can't see it. I actually worked in Digital TV a while and I don't have any faith in these companies being able to pull off anything worthwhile for the public due to the anal retentives in the media industry.
PVRs are great - the public love them. However, they're by no means the statan to media companies. PVRs will change, allowing targeted programming, targetted adverts, pay per view, etc. Nerds will hate it (I do), but it will happen.
But that's only the start. PVRs are not long for this world, as a set top box anyway. The future will be PVRs in the network - no set top box, no limited 40Gb storage - it will all work in the back end for you. Not only will this offer PVR like functionality but it will bring the reality of video on demand and targeted programming to the masses.
When this happens, the big media companies will be able to make more money from it than they can from their current distribution systems.
If they kill this, their only hope is DVD and then they're opening themselves up to far more piracy.
Personally, I hope all such companies burn in hell, but realistically they'll survive and continue to screw me over with content I don't want. Hopefully the digital revolution will give me a *bit* more choice.
Audio tape? Hell, they said the same thing about radio, and sued to stop radio broadcasters.
The said the same thing about imported LPs, DAT, used CDs, anything they could find to lay blame on to explain a temporary downturn in revenue. Increases in revenue are, of course, entirely due to their own brilliance.
This is about what it always about - the lobbyist's desire to get the government to give their industry a handout. They used the introduction of DAT to get a tax passed on the units and blank tapes. As musicians and Deadheads are virtually the only people who buy DATs (other than data DATS for backup), they have been paying a tax that it delivered directly to the members of the RIAA.
Forget welfare to the poor. It is dwarfed by Corporate Welfare.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
I found this exchange fascinating:
I'm not one who participates in copyright infringment, even with the strict standards imposed by recent changes to the law. Mr. Valenti's testimony, however, has completely changed my opinion on whether or not it is right for me (y'all are welcome to do as you wish, I'm talking about me) to engage in such practices. What's good for the goose, and all.
I think I'll go download something right now....
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Newspapers love these quotes like "property that we exhibit in theaters... is going to be so eroded in value by the use of these unlicensed machines, that the whole valuable asset is going to be blighted."
And I definitely see something like "Unlicenced Machines: Comparing Anti-VCR and Anti-PC Arguments from the Film Industry" being accepted at an undergrad research conference.
This means more people hear about, (hopefully) more people think about, and more people tell others about these nonsense arguments.
They can make more money by exploiting our computers. That's why they want "certified" systems - to control what the computer users can do with the equipment they (the users) paid for.
Thank goodness this testimony became available. Through it, Jack Valenti was finally able to set me straight. Here's one of the truly remarkable things he said:
"I have spent most of my adult life in politics and you learn one thing. Nothing of value is free. "
Now I know I should erase Linux and FreeBSD from my company's servers and install Windows. Because, obviously, if I got something for free, it's worthless. And how can you base a business on something that's worthless?
Thank goodness he set me free. Amazing how prescient he proved to be way back in the early eighties.
Thanks, Jack!
-Joe
The time has come for advocates of general purpose tools to adopt some words. "General purpose" I like, but it could be better. Suggestions? Some more ideas, but please, come up with more, everyone:
- 'Piracy' -- Copyright infringement is called just that, 'copyright infringement.' I suggest you stop someone when they use the word 'piracy' and ask them what boats on what ocean they are talking about. "Piracy" has no legal meaning and it only exists because 'copyright infringement' doesn't sound as bad. It's hard to argue with this fact.
- Spyware is an excellent word to use for DivX and Kazaa kind of cases. It's not directly related to this debate as much, but it's an excellent example of choosing your own vocabulary.
- I think we should call programs that play DVD's but don't copy them 'crippleware' or 'defective' -- the MPAA calls them 'secure' -- I call them 'defective.' Even better, let's call anything related to copy restriction 'defective.'
- When speaking specifically, don't use the word 'protection', use the word 'restricted.' Everyone wants a 'protected' computer, no one wants a 'restricted' computer.
- 'Circumvention devices' is OK. But how about 'repair' devices that fix things like defective CDs. Or maybe 'full use' -- the DeCSS is a 'full use' device, in that it gives you full use of your computer.
Think of some good terms, everyone.-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
Looks like the MPAA has turned into the boy who cried wolf. With any luck, a pattern of resisting technological innovation will ultimately serve to discredit them in the eyes of law makers.
Both the MPAA and RIAA have resisted new technologies, like analog tape. In the past they were ultimately told to shut up and deal with it. Once they embraced the new technology, they found new markets.
Now the battleground is digital movies. I'm confident that the industry will eventually be put in their place, and then we'll see what innovations follow. Maybe in a decade, movies will be released straight to home theatre. Perhaps we'll see an immersion style of theatre where you can watch the movie from within it, or even participate.
I wish the industry would learn from their past and maybe try to be the ones innovating instead of the ones whining. They'd make more money dragging us into the future than the other way around.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
"The earth is undoubtedly flat." --Valenti talking to the Queen in the early `1400's
"Television is never going to be successful."--Valenti talking to himself in front of a bathroom mirror in 1919
"I haven't had an erection in 12 years."--Valenti talking to his wife in 2001.
-bgs006
Find Valenti and other societal rejects at inmates.com.
I found it fascinating that not only the MPAA (Valenti) was testifying. The national association of theatre owners, the actors guild, people from television, actors, etc. etc. All against the VCR, and all so set in their ways that they couldn't see the forest for the trees.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
This is actually kinda sad...
This repeat of history made me wonder about the story behind Jack Valenti. According to the MPAA web site, Jack is (or was) actually a truly remarkable man. He was a war hero and had an impressive career before becoming only the third President of the MPAA. Unfortunately that happened back in 1966. This is often the problem with having one person in power for so long.
The MPAA site seems to be as much about him as it is about the industry, with the press release page actually titled "Jack". The funniest thing is from this intro to his bio [my emphasis]:
"In his current role as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, Valenti has presided over a world wide sea change in the industry. New magical technology, the rise of importance of international markets, the tyranny of piracy have radically changed the landscape of the American film and television industry."
ACC quotes aside, technology does not equal magic. Jack, thanks, I'm sure that at one time you did a real bang up job but please step aside for someone who can understand and appreciate the direction and impact of new technology on our culture, and perhaps someone who's bio starts off with an appreciation of the majesty of the film industry, rather than fear mongering about issues you clearly can't handle.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
I changed my mind, I'm going to do this myself. Check out http://www.cafepress.com/EvilVCRs some time after an half an hour after I post this. I need to concentate on the delicate process of copying and pasteing text into a graphics program.
Yay for Slashdot... [...] God damn you guys are fucking pathetic.
You know, I discovered something recently. There are, it seems, lots and lots of other websites out there. You may not believe this, but Slashdot is not, in fact, the only website! What put me on to this was one of the links I saw in one of the articles here... it actually went to another website! As hard as it is to believe, there is actually some sort of rebel faction of websites that are not under the Slashdot dominion! Anyway, I thought the folks like yourself that are endlessly raging against the /. machine might just want to try some of these other websites instead. We'd miss you, of course... well, not really, but you are welcome to believe that if you like.
I'll bet real pirates are pissed that their image has been hijacked for the sake of copyright protection.
Pirates used to be swarthy, maruading, swashbucklers, living adventurously on the high seas. Now the term has been relegated to the description of pimply-faced, 16 year-old, recluses, downloading techno MP3s in the middle of the night.
The whole ordeal must be quite disheartening for them.
I wonder if his testimony was recorded on video. I'd love to send him a tape. He's got to have a VCR, right?
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
There's clearly more than one dynamic at work in the price drops. If the goal were simply to clear out old inventory, you wouldn't see some of the strategies that are actually used. In computer games, for instance, it's common to take an older title, repackage it in the cheapest possible packaging (like just a CD, with all manuals in electronic format), and sell it for a steep discount. Or sometimes game sellers will package several games that previously sold separately in a single package- or even on a single CD- for much less than the price of the games separately. That doesn't make sense as part of inventory reduction, since it involves pressing new disks and making new packaging, but does make sense if the goal is to get money from people unwilling or unable to pay for the latest, greatest games.
Selling boxed sets of CDs or DVDs is pretty much the same thing. A seller will first sell the disks separately. After a some time, they'll see sales dropping and will repackage the individual disks into a single boxed set that's cheaper than buying the disks separately. You'll see this all the time with anime DVDs. A series will be released first as individual disks. About a year after the last disk in the series comes out, they'll come out with a boxed set containing the whole series (or one season, for really long series) that sells for 30-50% less than the individual disks. Those boxed sets keep selling for a long time, so you know it's not just to clear out old inventory. It's because they know that the real fanatics have already bought the thing, and now they can only get money from other people by lowering the price.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
...technology into each and every consumer-grade VCR out there. It's called Macrovision people. When was the last time you tried to record a video cassette (that you bloody well BOUGHT, no less) onto a temporary copy so you could better preserve the original in an archive?
Uh huh. Thought so.
They just want to do the same thing to digital devices. It's just proving a lot harder to do. But for all your belly-aching and all your complaining about how information wants to be free, digital devices are too uncontrollable, too hackable, to maintain the threshold of expertise required to bypass them. (Witness DeCSS and descendants!)
Not everyone can double-click and magically cause a de-macrovision device to pop up so they can record from one VCR to another. They have to either fork out $$ to buy a device, or be advanced enough with analog devices and time-signals to build one themselves. Macrovision turned out to be an extremely effective form of copy protection. Unfortunately broadcast signals are so full of ads and trimmed to fit the schedules of the networks that there's not much point in using them as an alternative. Broadcast is not on-demand programming.
Now, anyone can rip and re-encode a DVD. Just go to http://www.doom9.net, it's all right there.
You're insane if you expect to come out of this with devices that are clean from the touch of the MPAA. But the fact that you're fighting for that means that the MPAA won't get away with true murder--just a relatively minor assault. The more outfield you go, the further towards your position the compromise will be.
After reading a few paragraphs of this uninspired, poorly spoken testimony by Jack Valentini, I've come to the obvious conclusion: (1) He's racist or at least a demagogue; (2) He's a lying bastard; (3) He's incredibly fucking dumb; (4) He's a short sighted man; (5) Because of the above, we have no more reason to consider his paranoia about "infringement" today than we did back then.
(1) He's a racist/demagogue. Its obvious from this that the man is racist. His remarks regarding the Japanese come in the category of "they're fucking us over" paranoia. If he's not a racist, he's at least a demagogue, willing to rile up people's sentiments to fulfill his ambitions. In other words, he's fine with the fact that his testimony leaves people with racist impressions, or that it leaves them irrationally stereotyping.
(2) He's a lying bastard. This is an obvious point, as video tapes have no ruining the movie industry; in fact, they've made it stronger. Why should we trust what he says now? Its motivated by the same paranoia as was what he said back then?
(3) He's incredibly fucking dumb. Well, if he's not (2) a lying bastard, he's (3) incredibly fucking dumb. If he sincerely believed that video's would ruin his industry, he's obviously fucking dumb. The past 20 years have proven that. So, why should we value the paranoid predictions of a fucking idiot? He's sort of like those religious idiots who were claiming apocalypse was coming at the millenium, 2000. Then it didn't come. So they said, "oh wait, the millenium's really 2001 because there was no year 0". Well, apocalypse didn't come then either. Now, they're backpeddling. See the parallels between them and Valentini? He predicted doom once, and it didn't come. He's predicted and predicting doom now, and it still isn't coming.
(4) & (5): He's an incredibly short-sighted man, and we shouldn't trust his paranoid prophecies any more now than should we have back them. These points follow as obvious consequences of the previous points.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." - Claire Wolfe, 101 Things To Do Until the Revolution
Okay, I'll play the devil's advocate and argue with the "fact."
According to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "piracy" has the following definition (emphasis mine):
Ok, I know I'm late to the party, but I just have to get this out, if for no other reason then to preserve this in a /. post for my own personal reference and amusement:
...
From the testimony of Jack Valenti:
(Jack addressing "Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen of the committee." I am going to stand, if you don't mind, Mr. Chairman, cause I have what is known as "visual aids."
Jackass. I think Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen of the committee know what a fucking visual aid is.
I am merely coming to start off by talking about the American film and television industry, not as an economic enterprise, but as a great national asset to this country, to the U.S. Treasury and the strength of the American dollar. And I am not just talking on behalf of people whose names are household words, like Clint Eastwood and some of his small band of peers.
No comment.
... But now we are facing a very new and a very troubling assault on our fiscal security
Nice contradiction there.
Now, these machines are advertised for one purpose in life. Their only single mission, their primary mission is to copy coyrighted material that belongs to other people.
(Johannas Valenti, owner of the Townsville horse and buggy dealer, 1912:) "The only reason the sell these cars is for one reason: to put me out of business. See, here on the window sticker: 'Get there faster than a horse and buggy.' I rest my case your honor."
Now, again, citing the fact that 100 percent of these machines are made in Japan and 85 percent of all of the blank tapes are made in Japan, and I say that, Mr. Chairman, because I. have to keep coming back to this trade asset because if the Congress doesn't act, then what we are going to be doing is exporting our jobs out of this country to another country, beyond the real of our own shore.
My grandmother heard similar things in Nazi Germany.
Now, let me tell you something about how this business works. My God, Clint Eastwood and Terry Semple, who is the head of Warner Bros., who is in this room, can speak to this with for more accuracy and understanding than I, but I think it is important to a brief summary.
I'll review God's testimony later. Oh, and what's with this obsession with Clint?
The permission of the copyright owner is required for the use of their programs in all markets. Now, I those markets include theaters, cable, pay cable, pay television, prerecorded cassettes, network television, syndicated television, video discs. Every one of those markets is going to be competing for Mr. Eastwood's new film "Firefox." They are going to license that film at a negotiated price. (bolding mine)
I LOVED Firefox, especially when they blew them damn copyright infringing commies right out of the frickin sky!
blah blah blah this is boring. Time to eat. Bye
_______
2B1ASK1
That will insure that the accountants running the broadcast media eventually fuck themselves.
...
After all... Reruns of "My Mother the Car" are all gravy aren't they?
And who needs anything else as filler between the commercials?
Some soulless, humourless scum sucking, unimaginative accountants proceed to do the math, eliminate unnecessary expense like content production, reproduction and then
And then the artists are forced to find other distribution channels and income models.
And then the content producers die of cash starvation.
And then the broadcast media die of cash starvation and then...
Then the xxAAs and their leadership can be taken to a small field in central Jersey and introduced to the end of high-powered weapons without the stocks.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Argh, I meant "life" of course.
Stupid not hitting the preview button first...