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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."
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,"
If there was a way to duplicate a cognac glass for 10 cents each, it'd be a different story.
DVD Jon is retiring?
"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"
Since CDs can stop working with a small scratch, unlike Cognac glasses, and the studios prevent back ups then they are the ones to replace it. Give us the ability to back up our software, Jack, and we won't need to bother you about replacements.
...but the cognac glass maker should not prevent me from making my own cognac glasses in case the ones I purchased from them break.
"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,"
That nice, except Cognac doesn't make sunglasses for toddlers. Many DVDs, on the other hand, are aimed towards children despite the discs being quite fragile.
If your kid's big wheel breaks after only minutes of riding it, I'm sure Fisher Price has a replacement plan for it.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
If you RTFA he says: 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. Where did this backup copy thing come from? A digital thing lasts forever. The last sentence is key here. If he really means this, then a backup copy is quite natural as the DVD is merely an imperfect way (easy to scratch) to hold what is actually bought, the digital content which is meant to last forever.
"There is no substitute for thinking" - Bjarne Stroustrup
Did Slashdot really receive only one submission for this story? It's really a horrible selection to put on the front page, given its horrible grammar.
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.
He took he? On DVD Jon, who is retiring tomorrow?
when he says stuff like
Yeah, shame on Engadget, and stuff.
but it is at least slightly encouraging to hear that he owns a TiVo.
This is similar to the MS Security Manager running Firefox news bit. Because Jack Valenti owns and enjoys a TiVo, means he condones all aspects of the technology? No, it's more likely Jack Valenti likes to use a TiVo as a new-fangled VCR.
Let's see what Google turned up:
"The MPAA, NFL and other sports leagues attempted to convince the agency that the devices pose a threat to copyrighted works and could be used to broadcast games where they are blacked out. FCC commissioners disagreed, finding that the fears were unfounded. MPAA chief Jack Valenti, who will step down next month, personally lobbied all five commissioners, FCC sources said."
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
-If- I bought a license to the music, it is not "destroyed" by scratching the disk. -If- I bought the media, I can do with its fysical properties what I like. Like copying.
Make up your mind Jack.
"/Dread"
LIE: "Where did this backup copy thing come from? A digital thing lasts forever."
No it doesn't. CDs rust because of manufacturing defects. DVDs scratch so easily you'd think they were designed to need replacing if the kids get hold of them! Jack's comment is like saying that insurance is unnecessary because houses don't burn down. Software manufacturers will replaced damaged media for a nominal fee. The DVD manufacturers could make the "you don't need a backup" line a reality if they offered $1 replacements for damaged DVDs and $0.50 replacements for CDs that get damaged, and indeed, there should be a legal mandate for them to do so upon production of a scratched original. They could handle it through the record stores - bring in your old CD or DVD, hand over your dollar, and get a bright new shining one. That would make consumers happy about buying such fragile media. At that point, however, they would not be able to say - sorry, run out of copies. They would have to make more copies rapidly if more people come back. This should also last as long as the copyright lasts upon the programme material + 50, just in case. Ofcourse, if you don't copyright it and give it to the public domain, you don't have to supply backups - now that's fair.
LIE "But I visited the labs at Caltech, and they're running an experiment called FAST where they can bring down a DVD-quality movie in 5 seconds. " what's that - about 1GB per second?? Anyone know a hard drive that fast and affordable for my edit suite??? Sure cache it in RAM first..... Seriously Jack...
LIE "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." It's fair that we get screwed by the MPAA, but not fair when every TV advert for every movie I've ever seen says "own it on DVD" - for emphasis "OWN IT". If I own it, whatever I do with it is fair. If I own it I don't have a right to a free or very cheap replacement of the media. I know I don't own software as it's licenced. But I must own the DVD as you told me - it can't be licenced. Now which way do you want it Jack. If I own it, I'll do whatever the hell I like with it.
LIE "So there are no restrictions that Hollywood wants to place on what people can do with media on their computers?
Well, I can't tell you that. We have to see what the technology can provide." So what you're really saying Jack is that you want Linux and open source OSs illegal, everyone to buy Microsoft and have computers so restricted that they're practically games and entertainment consoles. Jack - you're such a hypocrite.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
I guess he is clearly missing the point with that cognac glasses example:
it's not the glas that matter but the contents of the glass!
I buy a glas of cognac because I want cognac, I get the glas with the cognac - not the other way round.
Now my glass breaks - this can happen. No big deal however, because I poured a bit of cognac into another glas beforehand so I can still taste it's fine taste.
(replace "glass" with CD/DVD and "cognac" with movie/music in case you didn't get it)
I guess those people really don't want to see the reality...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
...and, on the seventh day, God switched off his Mac.
"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, 1982 click me
Having read TFA, it's quite clear to me that the industry is dominated by crusty old men (COM). Whilst they are reasonably happy to tolerate Baby Boomers (let's face it, BBs have created lots of wealth for COMs), they are not particularly happy about the surly behaviour of Generations X & Y. And why is that ? Many of us have an inherent distrust of their abuse of intellectual property. There is exactly ONE solution to the "problem" of copyright circumvention. Namely, make *everything digital* so utterly accessible (i.e cheap & easy to download) so that it's just not worth the effort to pirate it. Most digital "content" falls into the category of luxury (i.e it's nices to have rather then essential). Standard economic theory stresses that luxuries have a very elastic demand curve. i.e. you lower the price and sales volumes increase massively. Result: low price (i.e. $1/CD or $2.50/DVD) = huge sales and bugger all piracy.
It's good luck to be superstitious
Ah, this is classic! An old man's uninformed belief that somehow we can protect people from thinking!
"I really do believe we can stuff enough algorithms in a movie that only the dedicated hackers can spend the time and effort to try to plumb through those 1,000 algorithms to try to find a way to beat it."
Re-he-he-heally. Don't you realize that once ONE person breaks it (out of, oh, maybe, 3 billion hackers worldwide), then you've got the raw data, which you can copy directly to whatever and whomever you want. This is some sort of religious belief in encryption and obfuscation that is not shared by anyone who knows anything about scientific computing. CSS was broken, AES, DES, RCA, VHS, MP3, GTFO, and WTF have all been broken. And guess what? The future ones will be too!
Find a new path.
-Dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
First, this is NOT meant as a flame at all. I would just like to know. Who here actually backs up their DVD's or CD's?
I ask this because I do not back up my media. Nor does my family. Nor does anyone in my wife's family. Nor does anyone I work with or even know. NO one I've met in "the real world" has backed up a DVD or CD. Ever! Sure, back when albums and tapes were the big thing I would make a tape of an album...but to listen to in my car really. But then again, they weren't really back-ups as the sound on analog tape was horrible compared to an album.
So I ask you, are there really people out there backing up all their media like this? By the way, I have kids, my wife's family also has many kids. So far, we haven't had anyone get a scratched DVD...not saying that we won't, but I guess we show the kids how to handle DVD's...not that it takes a genius to grasp the concept.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
From the interview:
Seems to have changed eir tune since the 1982 Betamax testimony:
Also, those Cognac glasses are only for a certain kind of Cognac. You are not allowed to use them to drink unlicensed brands of Cognac. And don't even think about putting anything else in them. Want to drink water out of them? If we catch you, we will sue you.
Valenti is an idiot. He almost single-handedly killed the entertainment industry with his crusade against VCRs (a technology that actually saved the industry). I cannot figure out why the industry even pays him lip service because he is a moron. Oh, he doesn't mind technology so long as it has all the controls in place he wants and it is illegal to change those controls.
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.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I buy VERY EXPENSIVE CD's with music for my kids. They take them out of the CD player, put them on the floor, walk on them and the next time they play them it's experimental rap music, not Disney songs. No backup = dead within a week.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
A digital thing lasts forever.
Jack Valenti's almost right, yet missing the point entirely. A digital thing will last forever if it can leave the shackles of whatever physical medium it's stored on. If you have two copies, and only one of them is likely to get destroyed at any given time (say, you've copied a CD to a friend with the explicit orders that ey can't listen to it because that would be illegal, just to have an off-site backup), then you'll always have a perfect copy.
But being able to copy and manage the data better is the only advantage digital media have over their analogue counterparts. If you take away the rights to copy them, there is no point in using digital media in the first place.
"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.
Dance like nobody's watching. Sing like you're in the shower. Fuck like you're being filmed.
You have been apparently indoctrinated with a great success, but the fact is that you don't need any special "right to watch" a movie, like you don't need any "right to read" a book, at least not yet. The only thing that the copyright law regulates is the right to publish and distribute, not any magical "right to see" which would somehow make illegal the very act of merely looking at publicly available things, which would be completely ridiculous. Please do not spread the FUD. The scums like Jack Valenti want us to think that way, but it does's make it true. Please try to keep that in mind. This is actually extremely important because if all of people think like yourself, then no one will protest when corporations finally put it into law, because everyone will think it has always been that way, which is simply not true. I wouldn't have even answered to this post but it was moderated as Score:5, Insightful so apparently there are more misinformed people here.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
It's not encouraging at all that he has and enjoys a TiVo. Most of the strongest anti-gun pundits have guns of their own, and many have concealed-weapon permits. You're failing to grasp the underlying concept: they want to have all the rights, and leave you with none. The same thing applies here. You can't oppress people if they're in the same caste as you.
A digital thing lasts forever???
Maybe after 10 cognac glasses...
diegoT
1) I can take one of the remaining glasses to a friend who is a hobbyist glass blower and see if he can make one for me free of charge (assuming the glass design is trademarked)
2) I can get my own Cognac glass blowing setup and make an myself a new matching glass once I've aquired the skills and materials.
3) After making one or two for myself, I can crank out a whole bunch for my friends free of charge as Christmas presents, anniversary gifts, or wedding presents.
4) I can take detailed measurements of the glasses, bring them to a glass factory, and have them turn out duplicates for me (legal or not, this happens ALL OF THE TIME in industry) so that I can avoid the high costs of buying from the original manufacturer.
5) I can throw a Cognac party for as many people I want, and allow those folks to view and use my legally purchased Cognac glasses without fear of reprocussion.
Now, which of these options are available to me to do legally with CDs or DVDs?
My son is functionally autistic. Sometimes he gets a *little* excited about playing his games and forgets. I wish I could back up his Gamecube games because they somewhat fragile and easily scratched.
:)
We were sticking with the SNES (cartridges are harder to damage), but even at 5 years old he could tell the difference between Super Mario World and Sunshine. (He beat Sunshine last week!)
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I really do believe we can stuff enough algorithms in a movie that only the dedicated hackers can spend the time and effort to try to plumb through those 1,000 algorithms to try to find a way to beat it.
Here's the problem with that opinion - it only takes ONE hacker to beat the "algorithms". How long do you really think it will take 10,000 hackers all over the world to beat these "algorithms"?
Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's really hard to put it back in.
The "zero tolerance" stance on piracy will never work. Make it difficult for large scale pirates (guys mass producing pirated DVDs all over Asia) by involving local law enforcement. Suing Joe Consumer for copying the latest Soprano's DVD is bad for business and just plain stupid.
-ted
If I buy a set of cognac glasses and then move to Belgium, I don't have to buy a special set of Belgian cognac glasses.
When I buy a set of cognac glasses, they'll work with any brand of cognac, even cognac my friends and I made as part of a giant collaborative project.
If I buy cognac glasses and decide to drink milk out of them, the manufacturer won't accuse me of violating the licensing agreement.
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.
If I sell the cognac glasses at a second-hand store, the aforementioned GIAA won't accuse me of stealing profits away from the original cognac-glass-makers, or claim that I probably made an illegal copy of them before I sold them.
I don't have to pay higher prices on glassblowing supplies on the assumption that I'll probably use them to make illegal copies of cognac glasses.
And the #1 difference between DVDs and cognac glasses:
The cognac glass actually contains something I might enjoy.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Beautiful.
--
Will
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.
No one ever asked movie companies to give out free backup copies. What we want is to not get sued or put in jail if we copy a DVD, or rip it to an mp4 on our laptop to take on vacation, or do any number of things with the DVD we just bought.
Bascially, we'd like to be treated the same as when we buy a set of glasses: once, we've bought it, we can do anything we want with it. Glassmakers don't try to have people put in jail for post articles on how to blow glass.
This is the real Hippocratic issue:
If you "own it", as the adds say, then you can do what you please. Backup, copy, mix, etc. (minus making $ from copies)
If you actually "license it", then saying "Own it today" is false advertising. AND you should still be able to get replacement media.
The RIAA/MPAA/CRIA all want the same thing: The advantages from both and no disadvantages from either. Also, they want this to work on hardware that you paid for. This is just plain Greed and hypocrisy
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
"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" Correct but if the purchaser has the tools and the knowhow he can make his own copies of the glasses. They just dont 'get it'...
Look, either you are selling content or you are selling physical goods -- you cannot have your cake and eat it too. When you buy a DVD you are buying content. The DVD is merely the delivery vehicle for the content. If I buy a tune from itunes and then burn it to my CD and it breaks, should I then also not be able to re burn it? It infuriates me that people like Jack Valenti have no problem gouging the public with expensive dvds and then when the medium is no longer useable try to compare it to a pair of cognac glasses. On Thursday night someone broke the window of my car at the West Oakland BART station and in addition to stealing the dvd player in the car stole all of my kids dvds -- about 20 of them which were hidden in the glove compartment. They stole the dvd player even though I had taken the face plate off and it is essentially worthless to them without it. Now Vallenti wants to tell me that I'm SOL and why don't I just go out and drop another $500 buying my content all over again -- and he has the audacity to speak about a "moral imperative."?! This guy is classic. How about this Jack. How about I just download everything I want for free and use any resource I have to avoid ever paying for another dvd for the rest of my life. How about I just copy everything to my PC and burn it to dvd for play in my car in the future and don't give you or your friends another god-damn dime. There is a reason that you are portrayed as a "villian" in cyberspace. And while you may have a modicum of power based on your previous position with the MPAA, the tide is turning and things like you opening your mouth and saying really stupid things will ony bring about both grass roots political change and technological pirating tools faster. You, my friend, are a hypocrite -- someone who talks about the value being the content one day and the form the very next.
I liked how he 'sleeps like a baby'. Of course he does -- his body is cushioned by thousands of dollar bills.
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You are what you think.