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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.'"
I find it odd that people cite the MPAA figures for lost revenue. These figures assume that all of this media would have been purchased had they not been "stolen." IANAAccountant but I think that their figures could be reduced by a factor of a hundred to get closer to the actual losses.
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
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.
Will we totally obliterate piracy? No. But we have to make it as difficult as possible.
Suing people won't make downloading "difficult". Perhaps a bit riskier for those people in the US who happen to do so.
Regardless, I'm assuming they'll have to go to the ISPs individually with a court order for ID rather than the sweeping lawsuits the RIAA used?
Trolling is a art,
Profits are up as a result of raising movie ticket prices to make up for losses due to piracy...
So stopping piracy will bring movie prices below $12/show right? Riiiiiiiight???
When it costs as much to see the movie in the theater as you can OWN the DVD for later on, it's a wonder they still make money at all.
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I found the real explanation here, nestled between paragraphs...
"We know there are losses. We believe we're losing $3.5 billion yearly."
...
"My son Jon was executive producer of the recent film Mr. 3000."
Hmmmm. Ever considered that part of that mysterious 3.5 billion dollars might have gone into making this stinker?
In any case, Mr. Glickman does a wonderful job of not answering the question at all, and by pulling a random number out of the air.
Right
"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?" Translation: Awww I'm rich beyond silly. I was the executive producer for a shitty movie that nobdoy wanted to see. Daddy make the bad pirates go away.
Several points.
A) In the past few years, Cable TV, view-on-demand, pay-per-view, TiVo and gang have proliferated. Massively. That means that single-viewing of movies became cheaper. Meaning that people can finally see CatWoman for a dollar before blowing $25 on the DVD. Thus, triage has gotten tougher, and crappy movies can't sell DVDs on title alone, anymore, in quantities they used to.
B) Suing downloaders has nothing to do with lost revenue. Lawsuits are, in the modern world, more frequently made to acquire profits than to compensate for losses. SCO would've NEVER generated income based on its alleged properties on the scale of some of companies whom it is suing. It is far easier, and cheaper in the terms of production expenses, to sue someone than to turn out a new product.
C) Suing downloaders, most likely, doesn't have 'making profit' as a primary goal. Most students and high schoolers can't pay tens of thousands of dollars of damages. No. Goal is Shock and Awe assault on offenders. Smack a hundred of them with lawsuits, and others would back off. At least in theory.
In the end, it all comes down to the fact modern movie costs are overblown. If an actor gets paid several mil. dollars for half a year of half-assed work, and you have several of those actors to pay, then add to that a million other overblown expense issues... Holywood really needs some budget lessons.
'...computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons...' Popular Mechanics, 03/49'
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.