Ars Technica – April 26, 2007:
At a LexisNexis conference on DRM this week, MPAA boss Dan Glickman said the movie studios were now fully committed to interoperable DRM, and they recognize that consumers should be able to use legitimate video material on any item in the house, including home networks. In a major shift for the industry, Glickman also announced a plan to let consumers rip DVDs for use on home media servers and iPods.
Despite the lack of specificity, Glickman’s speech marks a step forward for the MPAA, which says it is now committed to allowing content to play on any device, from any manufacturer.
This just in, Jack Valenti, the former head of the MPAA is dead. You might remember him, he once said that the “VCR is to the American film producer… as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” Even after the movie industry made billions selling and renting VHS tapes, he still refused to admit that the Supreme Court was right when it ruled that VCRs were legal. In addition to hyperbole and a dogmatic refusal to admit when he was wrong, he was also willing to lie. He once said that “fair use is not in the law,” completely ignoring both 17 § 107 and centuries of case law. To say he was single-minded would have been a complete understatement.
Maybe it’s fitting that on the day he dies the MPAA becomes just a little more reasonable.
Jack Valenti = CAN TALK JIVE
I imagine he’s getting pretty crispy about now
man, to imagine my youth without vhs…now that is a cold, frightening world!
It’s not too late for the MPAA to choose a path separate from the insane RIAA.
I never know what to believe these days.
I’m sure this story is accurate but just last night on NBC, whose owners are part of the MPAA and said so, the so-called ‘news’ ran a pablum story that combined all the MPAA crap stories we’ve been seeing on the ‘Net for the past few months.
They ran the story straight, as if everything in it was one hundred percent true and asked no questions of their Masters, of course.
They cried about billions in losses every year, as if Chinese and Indonesian people could actually afford to purchase this product at full price (and would), they brought on the CD sniffing dogs and they even reported on the death threats to the dogs.
It was all the same old crap although I have to admit, the reporter seemed to lack enthusiasm and looked a bit embarrassed.
This morning I read this story. Which one is true – or are both of them somehow true?
5 – Fred Flint – It’s obvious that the ghost of Jack Valenti drifted into the newsroom and occupied the teleprompter for a few minutes on its way over to the celestial Down escalator. Sometimes the strongly obsessed have a hard time letting go. Plus, the notion of a “Down escalator” might confuse anyone.
6. TJGeezer,
I’m sure you are correct – or maybe it was a Requiem to Jack.
By the way, I don’t believe in “down” escalators any more than I believe in “up” escalators. So far as I can tell when I visit the big city, the so-called escalators are just stairs where city people hold foot races.
I expect to see “running up the down escalator” as an Olympic sport one of these days, along with “Trample the Old Folks”.
Jack Valenti was a good man on the wrong side of a complicated issue. He was very very wrong but that doesn’t make him a bad man. It just makes him a very very wrong man on this issue.
Jack Valenti *dead*????? No one ever tells me anything!!!!!
The biggest issue with DRM is that no matter how it is implemented, it will end up being a roadblock to legal use by someone because inevitably there will be incompatibilies and bugs that screw it all up.
This is one of those threads where I laugh at people who actually buy music & movies & etc
This Dan Glickman guy is begining to figure out this “Internet Craze” thing, apparently…
#1 – ZeOverMind
Very nice.
#2 – ZeOverMind, encore
Very nice, encore.
In a mere 13 words you summed up the man and his life’s work to perfection.
One more remnant of Old Hollywood gone and not a minute too soon. That sorry old bastard coulda given Stalin tips on ruthless tyranny. What a joke, a so-called “liberal” who couldn’t conceive of the idea that he might actually be wrong about something. Egotistical baldfaced liar without a shred of shame.
Saddled the American film industry with the utterly worthless – no, worse than worthless rating system that remains to this day a pointless yet substantial barrier to artists who simply want to make a fuckin’ movie. Making a film with truly adult content can be done only by those rare characters who are financially and artistically independent enough to tell the MPAA to fuck off – and at the other end, you almost never see a general-interest film without the clichéd, gratuitous profanity and / or mild T&A shot needed for a PG, since a G is the Kiss of Death.
Yeah. Thanks, Jack. And do us all a favor, huh? Stay dead.
#12 – “…G is the Kiss of Death…”
Unless you’rre disney/pixar, and its an animated/cgi flick.
Yeah, I’ll give ya that… but is that a good thing or a not-good thing?
Hey, if I can buy a 2-3 terrabyte set-top box and rip all my DVDs to it legitimately, I am all over it. Of course, one wonders how this will work with services like NetFlix and so forth …
13. “Unless you’rre disney/pixar, and its an animated/cgi flick.”
While G means kiddie movie today, I’m so old I remember when G movies meant for general audiences. Even the Beatles’ Hard Days Night was rated G.
So unlike people in the 60s, we apparently need more parental guidance.