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Interview with MPAA Chief Dan Glickman
farmerbuzz writes "USAToday has an interview with Dan Glickman (Jack Valenti's replacement as the CEO of the MPAA) where he announces that the MPAA will begin suing movie downloaders. An interesting point brought up in the interview: 'At the time the RIAA announced its lawsuits, it said music sales had fallen 25% over a three-year period. The MPAA is in a much different situation. Box office receipts aren't down at all -- 2003's figures were $9.5 billion, the second biggest in history.'"
A: Some people who were sued raised hell. But by and large, if you look at the big picture, it was important to make the point that this cannot be free. Piracy has a tremendous negative impact on consumers.
No, the movie industry has had a tremendous negative impact on itself. Expensive movies that fail turn into expensive losses. STOP MAKING SHITTY FUCKING MOVIES that cost 100+ million dollars. Believe me, I don't feel sorry for the MPAA when they have to shell out millions to big name actors to get them to act in a movie that sucks.
In fact, if anything, piracy has had a great impact on consumers. The MPAA has been forced to push movies out quickly to consumers at low costs. Walmart has some great titles for under $8. Target routinely has newer releases for under $15 and some under $10 on sale.
A: My son Jon was executive producer of the recent film Mr. 3000. A few days after the film was released, a member of my staff found it being sold as a DVD just a few blocks from our offices. I called my son to give him the bad news, and he told me this is happening to all the current films. And then he said, "And what are you going to do about it, Dad?"
Is this quote supposed to make me feel bad? That the head of the MPAA is fighting for the rights of his son who is a producer? I don't. In fact, it turns me off more than anything.
A: I have very good teachers here. I think of myself as having adequate knowledge, but the principles are easy to understand. We have to embrace new technologies, but also enforce the law.
Perhaps you should learn to embrace the wants and needs of the consumers and be less worried about pissing everyone off.
I love that belief, that every download or copy made without paying for it WOULD HAVE BEEN a sale. Believe me, there are movies that I've seen that, while yes I liked, I would not spend what they asked for it. I would not go out of my way to acquire the movie. In all honesty, if I lived without seeing the movie again, I could probably do so very happily.
For some people, there is a certain price that they're willing to pay for something. In the case of someone who won't buy it, that price just happens to be $0.
Exceptions to this statement are those people that would have bought it, but instead saw it for free (pirated) and in their cost comparison, found free was more amiable to anything else.
This is not meant as validation for pirating, merely debunking this "lost revenue" crap.
There's been many studies that showed the file sharing has not decreased (and I would agree with that). There's also studies showing that CD sales have continued to plummet.
So, you may ask, if the monte carlo lawsuit method isn't slowing piracy then why would the MPAA take up the same fight?
The answer is simple. The goal isn't to curb piracy, that won't help anyone. If the CDs being released now are really bad then stopping piracy isn't going to fix that.
Piracy is simply an income source. A few years ago the RIAA had to find, sign, and rape bands, then spend a fair amount of money to advertise and publish the bands. This was lots of work for a moderate income. Lawsuits are much easier. Simply write a program to log into a file sharing network, write down IPs, and have the printer send out extortion letters as fast as it can.
One person, with a pair of laserjet printers and an internet connection, can generate a few thousand dollars per extortion letter printed.
Hold on a second....
Sorry about that delay, I had to fold the paper that just came out of the printer and put it in the envelope. I just made $2000 by threatening some 13 year old kid.
What? You say this will make me look bad? You say that people will become alienated and refuse to buy CDs? I couldn't care less. I, as the RIAA, make far more money mailing out random lawsuits that I do pushing pop CDs.
The lawsuits won't stop piracy, but nobody wants piracy to stop. If piracy were suddenly brought to a halt then the RIAA would have no income from CDs AND no income from lawsuits. Piracy is what keeps the RIAA in business now.
It's what keeps the RIAA in business, it's what keeps SCO in business, and it's worked for years. The MPAA isn't hurting, not in the area of sales. What they see is an additional income source that they can tap into.
If *YOU* want to become rich, simply start an organization called "anti-piracy group". Contact a few dozen big software manufacturers and get them to sign a contract. "If you let my organization sue file sharers on your behalf, I'll settle out of court and give you half."
You won't stop piracy, but you'll be filthy rich really quick. It's a good income for the software companies so they may be eager to sign up!
Before Dan Glickman started working for the MPAA, he was at the institute of politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Gov't. My wife and a classmate did a independent study with him about funding school lunches. She said the he was honest, excited, and insightful - one of the nicest "professors" she had ever worked with.
This has been mentioned before, but while Sec. of Agriculture under Clinton, he was the catalyst in a civil rights cleanup in the department. He had little support from anybody on this (including Clinton, most people would say). He just thought it was the right thing to do. I think that's pretty amazing these days.
People may hate the MPAA (for good reason), but it's better to have somebody like Glickman at their helm than Valenti.
I don't think that most people who download movies are watching them on a computer any more. With a $100 DVD Burner, $0.25 blank DVD, plus free (and awesome) DVD Shrink, you've got yourself a shiny new DVD movie.
I don't respond to AC's.
Society is really messed up when corruption amongst lawmakers is treated as casually as both interviewer and interviewee did here.
Did the interviewer make up the bit about Republicans claiming an entitlement to certain jobs based on their control of Congress, or is their support for this?
This is a far more serious issue than movie piracy.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
there are all sorts of ways to beat the system.
always mosh clockwise
Or you can do what I do, buy used CD's and movies. MPAA and RIAA arent getting any money from me, and I get legal, cheap media.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
I had an idea the other night. The MPAA should give movie goers a free DVD copy of every movie they go see.
Maybe you have to make it $1 or something? Either way, I think once you've paid to see a movie, you should not have to buy it for $15 or $20 if you want to see it again. No?
If you just want to wait till it comes out on DVD then it should only cost $5 to $10. Something like that.
- Kevin
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
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I believe their strategy works, although maybe just for a percentage of file sharers. I know someone who stopped using P2P entirely once the lawsuits came out. Sure, even if you're statistically not likely to get sued, why risk it?
If you're just downloading for fun, to hear a couple of songs or watch some movies, then why not just spend 20 bucks and get it legitimately?
For me, being on a university network is wonderful for downloading--but I don't try to abuse it. If I want something really bad, then buying it is usually what I'll do. For those passing interests (maybe I'll watch some silly comedy movie) I'll get it online and feel stupid for even bothering to download it.
In the end, how fun is it to watch the video/listen to the track--and compare that to how much trouble you might have if only 1% of people who saw it got a threatening letter...and if 1% of those people actually got sued, but had to waste weeks of their time and thousands of dollars, then is it really worth it?
I think it's about time some people get sued. They are the ones clearly breaking the law--nobody is trying to shut down bittorrent per se. If the music industry doesn't like people downloading their movies, they should forcefully "remind" us of it--and then act on their threat. That is the most powerful deterrent I can imagine.
Why should Joe have the privledge of enjoying music/movies/anything that he can't pay for? This isn't Food, Shelter, or Medicine here, Joe will get along just fine without access to the Bubba Bandits latest album (there's even this "free" service called the radio and TV).
The RIAA bugs me because they use price fixing to inflate the price of their goods, and haven't figured out the sliding price models that serve the software and movie industry pretty well. While these successful and growing inustries price their new material highest, slowly dropping prices over time, the music industry prices new material lowest, then raises prices. But I still don't use that as justification for stealing music.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Another comparison that might be worth something in the actual pseudo-stealing debate : how has the global 'entertainement' budget been affected ?
As a member of the "18-24" age-rank, my budget is more or less $700 a month, all inclusive. I'm sorry to say that if I have the choice between any $15 CD and any $15 DVD even with no bonus, I'll go for the DVD, 2 out of 3 times, unless the record is one I really want.
I might spent $50 a month on entertainement -- but I never bought videos, because they take a lot of space and are poor quality. Now the DVDs have come out, the market has more variety, but my wallet is still the same size...
Sure, the CD sales went down the gutter, but it is not because of the p2p, it is because of a basic market regulation rule of thumb : the customers will always go where they get their money worth, hence DVD over CD.
If broadband and p2p had been available 15 years ago, I bet they would have blamed the failure of comemrcial pre recorded DAT, or 8 years ago commercial MD, on p2p instead of poor money-worth ratio...
And if you go see a movie in a theater, all you get is that one viewing. If you have a copy of it, you can watch it when you want, as many times as you want. Yet people are still willing to fork over around $10 apiece to just SEE the movie.
If me and my wife to go a movie, it costs us $20. Why wouldn't I just wait for it to come out on DVD and BUY it for about the same price? Now you can argue that there is some "theater experience", but for me that experience is only enjoyable under the rarest of circumstances. We only have a 27" TV at home, and it is fine for movies. I can't imagine what someone with a 50" TV and full surround system would get out of the "theater" experience. Movies in theaters are big - the picture quality sucks. The sound is great, but you also have all kinds of ancillary sounds that detract from it. Gotta pee? You miss out. Need something else to eat? You miss out. Didn't hear what was said? You miss out.
The movie studios should be thankful that people still go to the damn theaters at all. You go see a movie that sucks, can you get your money back? Hell no. Studios can keep putting out crap, spend millions on promoting them, and rake the cash. They make so much money on movie-related crap it is sickening. The "marketing tie-ins" have turned the movie industry into the movie business. And it shows. You'll get the occasional gem, but for the most part - it is crap. I choose not to support the crap, and only watch what I think is worth seeing. For some reason, the rest of America seems to be mindless drones when it comes to movies. Must see [insert whatever is opening this weekend]. I know people who go see movies almost every weekend, regardless of what is playing. I hope one day that the United States of Consumerism wakes up.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
True, but the major difference between RIAA piracy and MPAA piracy is quality...
RIAA : Someone buys a CD, rips it to mp3 (or whatever format), shares it, somebody downloads it and can listen to it with virtually no loss in quality.
MPAA : Somebody goes to a movie theater, he brings a camcorder, films the screen, shares the result. Someone downloads the movie, shitty resolution (even 800x600 doesn't compare to today's hyper-huge-screen theaters), crappy sound.
People who know they'll enjoy the movie will still go to the theater or buy the DVD because shared copies lose a lot of quality compared to the theater version (much smaller resolution and crappy sound), and also some quality when ripped from the DVD version (file decryption/compression usually affects the quality of the colors).
People who know they'll enjoy the music can still download it and have a 'good-enough' copy and most people won't know the difference.
When people figure out a way to pirate theater movies with high-quality, then it will become a major issue in MPAA's income. For now, they're just trying to make money off people who downloads their movies and who wouldn't have gone to the theater anyway.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Okay there is a big difference here. The RIAA distributes music while the MPAA distributes movies.
I'm glad I just stated the obvious but I did it for a good point. The extended time it takes to watch a movie then to listen to a CD changes the effect of the product. You don't go around watching Chapter 3 & 5 of Kill Bill Vol. 1 and then watch a little Chapter 6 out of Cube. When this is easy to do with music, because one song is not directly connected to the other. With movies your going to watch the whole thing.
I find downloading movies is more like renting them, if I like the movie, I will most likely buy it. Mainly for the subtitles, great sound, dvd extras, and overall quality. Music isn't getting any better weather you get the CD or the mp3s of it. You can always download the cover and anything else that comes with the CD. You can do this with DVD's too but most don't. Most likely you will find a divx rip of the movie, with no subtitles (or enlish if the movie is in another language) with no dvd extras, no DD 7.1 surround sound option, a set quality and view port. The Divx copies are extremely limited.
People that download these movies for the sake of watching the movie wouldn't buy the movie anyways, they would probably rent it. Which as we know doesn't take away money from the MPAA, it takes away money from the rental business. Also there is a slim chance that people wouldn't even rent the movie. Generally the only thing I will do with a downloaded movie is watch it once to find out if i will be purchasing a good product that i will enjoy having. Sure, you could say that I am still doing this illegally, but this is helping the movie business because I have bought dvd's now that I wouldn't have imagined wanting to buy before.
I do disagree with what people are doing when it comes to pirating movies before they have came out in theaters, this can take away from theater sales because there are quite a few people that don't care if they see it in the theater or not, how ever this seems to be happening in every data business these days, weather it is music, movies, games, or software, on any platform and through any medium, it is a bit of a madness, but shame of the MPAA and the RIAA for trying to make a point by sueing random people that may be benifiting their company. You do not slap the hand that feeds you, eventually your going to end up starving!
redvsblue.com
::BANG!::
Sarge: Did you just shoot yourself in the foot?
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It's perfectly reasonable to argue that that type of piracy does represent lost sales, and I for one think it's entirely legitimate to go after the people peddling those sorts of things. Too bad he goes on with Now THAT just makes him sound like a media-whore-sue-everything-that-moves twit; it's a shame, he had a good thing going. Well, except that he shouldn't be allowed to breed - I wouldn't d/l Mr. 3000 if you paid me $9 to.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
While I agree with your basic point, look at it from the other side; Joe Dirt is in posession of their "property" which they value at full price.
Bzzzt! WRONG
This isn't about property. This is about copyright.
Copyright is this weird legal construction that regulates people are allowed to COPY even in private, behind closed doors.
By very definition there isn't any deprivation of property going on here as that actually WOULDN'T be copyright infingement, since no copies would need to be made.
Why should Joe have the privledge of enjoying music/movies/anything that he can't pay for?
Why should Joe not be able to make a copy of the contents of a piece of paper his friend hands him?
The whole concept of copyright is a arbitrary construction whose purpose was originally to inspire the creation of new works.
It's has gone completely beyond that.
Joe will get along just fine without access to the Bubba Bandits latest album
This is always the example I hear people using, some trivial piece of pop. What about 100 years of or fucking national history and knowedge?
There's more going on than just Britney's latest album.
How about something very political from someone long dead....
How about an eighty year old mathematics paper?
While you may consider listening to or watching some poppy piece of entertainment a "privilege", how about fundamental knowedge about the world around you?
(there's even this "free" service called the radio and TV).
Which typically airs total shit. And is run by companies who don't have the public's best interest in mind. And.... about a zillion more problems with this cop out. It the only "content" poor people should have access to the shit that's on the TV and radio?
While these successful and growing inustries price their new material highest, slowly dropping prices over time, the music industry prices new material lowest, then raises prices.
See the thing is their "booty" (it really shouldn't be called a product since they typically have nothing to do with it's creation and practically steal it) has a much longer shelf life. There will be a demand for copies of Abbey Road for quite some time whereas the latest crappy action flic is going to get erased from the public consiousness by the next action flic with slightly better special effects.
But I still don't use that as justification for stealing music.
Yes, so you don't shoplift.
Do you download music, or do you not know what stealing is?
Life is too short to proofread.
And exactly how do you know the "Bubba Bandits" latest album isn't the next Bethoven's 9th? If they created a great work of art, are they less entitled to earn money from their work? Is a professor who writes a book on Rome not entitled to earn a wage from his efforts? I'm not arguing for the current systems non-expiring copyrights, but against the idea that illegal copying of copyrighted works is OK because "I wasn't going to buy it".
do you not know what stealing is?
Do you not understand the concept of intellectual property? Have you never heard the expression "Stealing their ideas"? Do you have trouble with the concept of negative numbers? Perhaps even the number 0? These are things that exist in peoples heads that lack a physical counterpart, yet are key to the functioning of a modern world.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
I don't have a DVD player. I don't have a CD player. I don't have a VCR. I don't even have a television set. This is actually the honest truth.
And I consider hard media dead. Dead, I tell you. All my entertainment is enjoyed on a large computer screen. I would have gotten a projector if I had a bigger apartment, I am sure I'll never own a television set or any of it's related devices ever again.
So what is the movie industries alternative for me? Nothing. This is the alternative I want:
I buy a one months free rental card from a major TV station or producer, or from some movie corporation. The one months pass gives me the right to view all and anything from that particular corporation. The corporation should make all their shows available in high quality easily-distributed divx files. Not only does this make customers satisfied, but it allows people to distribute the files and advertise them freely. Movie vendors could also make two versions available: One available for everybody with advertisements and one without. Those who would pay for a non-advertisement copy would do that, those who do not want to pay will not do that regardless.
I'm sure I am not alone in being willing to pay for the copyrighted files available on the net. I would very much like to clarify that it is the divx versions available on the net I am willing to pay for. I am not willing to pay for any streaming service, any service with a closed file format, any format that requires a special player and so forth. The movie industry tends to want control, restricting the customers freedom to use the product to the point where he simply will not buy. He will get a free hi-qualify copy that is USABLE instead. 'I would pay for a streaming service or a dvd if it gave me the right to download the xvid version,' someone told me a while ago.
Now, how would the movie industry end piracy anyway? THIS IS NOT A REALISTIC option. They can not do that. They can, however, MOVE the piracy. They can move it from BitTorrent to Freenet. Then what? There is already freenet and there is not a thing anyone or any corporation, no matter how big or small, can do about it. BitTorrent sites can be closed by Napster was closed.
The public demand for soft-versions (not on hard media) of entertainment is what is making BitTorrent use up to 85% of the outgoing bandwidth at Universities because they industry itself does not provide any realistic meet for the demand.
So what is wrong with hard media? First, it is very unpractical. It takes up space. It involves finding the hard media and inserting it into some device. Download the file and it's already playable from the device, without finding anything. Any computer, xbox and other funny device today can store one movie, and that is all the space needed. Movies are so widely available today anyway there is no need to store it, most people now tend to just download and play music and movies a few times before they delete it. People used to burn these things back in the last century, today it's quicker to download a music album off the net when you want to listen to it than to find the CD you bought of the album 20 years ago.
The environmental issue: There is not a single scientific paper published the last 25 years that contradicts a 6 th wave of mass extinctions (We have had 5 throughout history, the dinosaurs got hit by the second) within the next two hundred years due to the human species over-harvesting, destroying of natural habitats and pollution. We are cutting down ten times more trees than the world naturally produces, we are harvesting 25% to 50% of all plant material produced by the earth in any single year. We need to stop producing garbage. CDs, DVDs and video tapes are unneeded garbage, things we produce not for survival but to entertain ourselves. And for no good reason at all. Electronic distribution eliminates the whole harmful production of these hard-media items.
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