Jack Valenti: The Exit Interview

thecounterfeit writes "Engadget has an interview with Jack Valenti, the outgoing president of the MPAA and the object of hatred for many hacker after he took he on DVD Jon, who is retiring tomorrow after more than three decades on the job. Engadget could have been a little harder on him when he says stuff like, "When you go to your department store and you buy 10 Cognac glasses and two weeks later you break two of them, the store doesn't give you two backup copies," but it is at least slightly encouraging to hear that he owns a TiVo."

Comments

Re:Breaking stuff

[Zorilla]

I guess I should also add, before everybody replies, that I'm aware that Disney has a fairly generous replacement plan for their DVDs. Glad to see Disney, of all large, bullying corporations, leading the way for this.

Re:It comes down to cost for the backup...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can they make their mind up about whether we buy their product or just license it? If I can't do as I please with what I paid money for, then they sure as hell will have to provide the backup which I would have made otherwise.

Re:Broken glasses

[LiquidCoooled]

You already can produce a cheap clone of anything!

You could keep your china safely packaged away, and put your nice copies up on the shelf.

I don't think they would be usable in this version (prototypes are like stiff rubber from what I understand), but give it a few more years.

http://www.zcorp.com/products/printersdetail.asp?I D=2

VCRs

[zoeblade]

From the interview:

I have a TiVo set. I truly enjoy it.

Seems to have changed eir tune since the 1982 Betamax testimony:

You are sitting in your home in your easy chair and here comes the commercial and it is right in the middle of a Clint Eastwood film and you don't want to be interrupted. So, what do you do? You pop this beta scan and a 1-minute commercial disappears in 2 seconds... If you are watching a Clint Eastwood film it is the most cheerful thing you can do. However, if you are an advertiser who has paid $280,000 a minute to advertise, he feels a very large pain in his stomach as well as in his checkbook because it destroys the reason for free television, the erasure, the blotting out, the fast forwarding, the visual searching, the variable beta scans. The technology is there and I am one who has a belief that before the next few years the Japanese will have built into their machines an automatic situation that kills the commercial... 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.

Re:Let me ask everyone here...

[cozziewozzie]

I have most of my (legally purchased) CDs ripped into high quality MP3s for listening on my laptop. It's a lot more convenient than changing CDs all the time. It is also safe in the case my CDs get damaged, which has happened in the past.

Re:Let me ask everyone here...

[werwerf]

I do.

I have backup copies of my CDs to carry on the car. That way, I do not put in danger originals buy scratching them on the car.

I have even downloaded albums that I had on CDs that were too scrached to be used.
So I think we, the customers, should be entitled to make backup copies of digital content, or at least, get back what we payed for (the content, not the media).

I fact, one of my colleagues has asked me for my original copy of a PS2 game that he bought for his kid (so damaged as not being usable)...

---
there was a SIG here.
it is gone now.
(Quiz: Where does my SIG comes from?)

Re:Jack Valenti is a liar!

[BlueSloop]

FAST is true. Though you're right in so far as today's average PC can't quite handle that.

From a press release: The protocol is called FAST, standing for Fast Active queue management Scalable Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The researchers have achieved a speed of 8,609 megabits per second (Mbps) by using 10 simultaneous flows of data over routed paths, the largest aggregate throughput ever accomplished in such a configuration. More importantly, the FAST protocol sustained this speed using standard packet size, stably over an extended period on shared networks in the presence of background traffic, making it adaptable for deployment on the world's high-speed production networks.

Re:Sure it's stealing.

[kahei]

By the letter of the law, my using Bittorrent to download the latest Adam Sandler flick is stealing.

NO. IT IS COPYRIGHT VIOLATION.

EVERY time a story like this comes along a THOUSAND brave volunteers leap up and point out the difference between intellectual and physical property laws, and STILL there remains this hard core that simply cannot Get It.

If you're going to talk about the 'letter of the law', shouldn't you read at least a brief overview of said law first?

Yet, hope is eternal and so on this day I do my part in the eternal struggle, by saying again in a loud, clear voice:

It is not STEALING but COPYRIGHT VIOLATION. Not the THEFT of MATERIAL PROPERTY but the UNLICENSED DUPLICATION of INFORMATION.

Fair Use IS in the law.

[abiggerhammer]

Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107. It's in the US Copyright Code.

"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

Reference is also made to "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes" -- to which "remix[ing] a few seconds of a Hollywood movie into a home movie project" certainly applies, and argument could be made that that remixing constitutes criticism, comment, or even teaching (video editing is a skill, too).

Between Valenti making claims like these, and the American Library Association going head-to-head with the Business Software Alliance to combat their misinformation about copyright, I have to wonder whether these guys realise the long-term damage they're doing to their reputations, since eventually, the truth will out.

Anyway, the law exists, just in case anyone was wondering. Kthxbye.

Re:Jack Valenti is a liar!

[Tim C]

I don't think I've ever seen a "rusted" CD...

I have a number of CD-Rs from a few years ago that are discoloured in the extreme; a few of them I ditched, as they were indeed unusable.

I don't suppose it's rust, but it's certainly a degradation of the materials involved. I don't recall seeing such degradation on any comercially-produced, pressed CDs, though.

Re:Jack Valenti is a liar!

[gfxguy]

Surely you can see the difficulties associated with such a system. First of all, you want the media companies to give you replacements on a $20 DVD or a $15 CD until the end of time? Really now. What should they do if the particular DVD you want replaced is rare and out-of-print?

But that's the point, isn't it? If we could make our own, it would be a problem. Adding draconian copyright law into the equation was an interesting touch... if they claim to hold the copyright then they should have copies available for sale. As soon as they decide to stop manufacturing, they should forfit the copyright.

That may sound draconian on my part, but in this age of on-demand CDs, surely they can make me a new copy of "Song of the South"** without requiring a new production run...

The problem with my suggestion is they can suddenly declare "OK, it's now in the public domain", but everyone's copy is copy-restricted.

Here's an idea. YOU could make the backups (which you CAN do) yourself.

I can? Legally? How? Tell me what software I can buy that will allow me to create a playable duplicate? Oh, wait... selling a product that bypasses copyright protection is illegal...

So you're saying, because I'm reading slashdot, I'm probably nerdy enough to be able to do it myself... that may be true, but it's not true in general. It doesn't apply when my Dad calls asking if it's possible, or my sister calls and asks if it's possible...

** Yes, I mention "Song of the South" for a reason.

Too late

[pommiekiwifruit]

Since IIRC the EU courts at least have concluded that loading something into RAM for the purposes of displaying it or running it comprises an act of copying.

Re:Jack Valenti is a liar!

[CrimsonAvenger]

"There is no fair use to take something that doesn't belong to you. That's not fair use..... Now, fair use is not in the law."

Actually, Fair Use IS in the law. Title 17, Section 107:

Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights:
Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors

Re:The full quote

[Medievalist]

A digital thing lasts forever.

Ha. Tell that to my Dell PowerVault 220S!

"...in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."
--Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (James Murphy translation, page 134)

Re:Difference between DVDs and cognac glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

You wrote: Infringements include unlicensed reproduction of well-known or popular images, duplication of original ceramic or glassware designs or patterns and other unapproved design reproduction.... If I build exact replicas of the cognac glasses using my own materials, and then give these replicas away, I won't get sued by the Glassblowing Industry Association of America.

Not quite. But you may be sued by the SGCD - Society of Glass and Ceramic Decorators.

As they write:

All involved parties are liable for infringement When a copyright infringement case is decided, all parties to the illegal reproduction may be liable. A decorator or decal printer may not have a complete defense by claiming that a customer had stated that such a reproduction was legal or that nobody was aware that a copyright existed for a certain piece. Illegal duplications are not limited to large production runs. A promotional product decorator who accepts an order for 144 mugs featuring a reproduction of famous artwork or a well-known logo should question whether the distributor's customer has the legal right to reproduce that image.

With the growth of the market for photo reproductions on mugs, tiles and other substrates, decorators must consider that photo images are not necessarily public property even if they are images of general public scenes. The use of such images should be cleared with the photographer.