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

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: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!

[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