Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Bye Bye Valenti

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Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-01-2004, 03:47 PM:

From Variety

Posted: Thurs., Jul. 1, 2004, 12:30pm PT

Valenti steps down

As expected, Glickman named successor

By SUSAN CRABTREE

WASHINGTON -- Jack Valenti relinquished the reigns of the Motion Picture Assn. of America and named Dan Glickman as his successor this afternoon.
Valenti, 82, will officially retire Sept. 1, the same day Glickman will take the helm as Hollywood's top lobbyist and new man on the Potomac.

Announcement was made at a press conference at the Hay Adams hotel in Washington

But white-maned Hollywood icon has no plans to ride off into the sunset and leave the industry entirely. Instead, he will remain in charge of the movie rating system that he implemented and shepherded for decades.

"I know a lot of you have been wondering when that son of a bitch is going to leave," Valenti joked during the public announcement. "Today I am announcing that I am formally retiring as president and CEO of the Motion Picture Assn. of America. It's been a long ride, a great ride, and I never failed to wake up in the morning eager to get about my chores."

The selection of Glickman culminates more than a year of speculation and interviews conducted by the seven studios heads that comprise the MPAA. Executive search firm Spencer Stuart was brought in to assist four and a half months ago after Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) turned down a formal offer and Sen. John Breaux (R-La.) declined interest in the glitzy post.

Glickman served nearly two decades as a Democratic member of Congress from Kansas and later as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture during the Clinton administration. He has spent the last several years as the director of the prestigious Institute of Politics at Harvard. His son, Jonathan Glickman, is a partner in Spyglass Entertainment.

"I am honored to be succeeding --no one can replace -- Jack Valenti," Glickman said. "He is a legend, and someone who brought the cinematic and creative communities issues to the forefront of national policy."

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/story.asp?l=story&a=VR1117907297&c=13

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Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 07-01-2004, 03:59 PM:

Sad that Mini Me's Uncle is retiring [Razz]

....at least he was a public face to prevent government regulation and censorship of the business.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-01-2004, 05:06 PM:

I hope no-one camcordered his press conference...

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-01-2004, 05:25 PM:

"I know a lot of you have been wondering when that son of a bitch is going to leave,"

That's probably the most insightful and truthful thing that SOB has ever said... [beer]

>>> Phil

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 07-01-2004, 05:29 PM:

I'll [beer]

to that, well, at least root beer....

JJ

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-01-2004, 06:05 PM:

quote: Jack Valenti
"I know a lot of you have been wondering when that son of a bitch is going to leave"

So he finally got a clue? [Big Grin]

What's the story about this Glickman guy? Anyone know if he is going to continue the Valenti legacy of acting like an ostrich rather than going after the REAL source of bootlegging?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-01-2004, 06:40 PM:

quote: Phil Hill
he will remain in charge of the movie rating system that he implemented and shepherded for decades

So he'll continue to not let that evolve properly.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-01-2004, 09:10 PM:

Mike, the whole rating system is a joke and I personally could care less about it. I am very happy they put him out to pasture "in charge" of the rating system!

What hacks me off is his stupidity and lame finger-pointing at who HE thinks are the people pirating films. He is sooo f*cking out to lunch on that it's pathetic!

>>> Phil

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-01-2004, 11:18 PM:

Good riddens! And just in time for my birthday. For my birthday I ought to go out and pirate a film or two and have a fun day....
Mark

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 07-02-2004, 01:43 AM:

Err, Phil, why do you think he is out to lunch?

I had the chance to talk to Jack in April, and it was interesting. He definitely did not seem to be confused or out to lunch where piracy was concerned, nor have I detected that in his public statements.

I'll post more about my conversation with him when I close out the issue with him...

As for Jack's tenure on the ratings board, as I understand it he is staying on to do that for less than a year, and then he is going to focus his attention on charity work (fighting AIDS), as well as a political commentating contract for a cable network. This was in one of the myriad of articles I read yesterday, not sure which, sorry.

--jhawk

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-02-2004, 02:23 AM:

Err, jhawk, I certainly hope when you talked to Jack that you in no way presented yourself as a representative of Film-Tech. That would be most disrespectful of the masses here who *loves* Jack in that *special way* for being such a rude little pain-in-the-ass to us all.

Just pay attention to one of Jack's ranting bitch-fests blaming theater owners for all the piracy. And Paul Thompson gave us a link just the other day about how 92% of all bootlegging is from cinema prints, according to the MPAA. I am in agreement with Phil about Jack being out to lunch on the issue, but from the sound of it, so are you. Sheeeeezh!

By the way, when you close out the issue with Jack, be sure and post it in the Joke-A-Thon forum so the mods don't have to move it.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 07-02-2004, 02:24 AM:

Bon Voyage, Mr. Valenti. We wish you high winds and heavy seas. Don't let the door hit you in the butt as you leave your office. [Big Grin]

Just a slice, I know....But Mr. Valenti had the guts to stand up for what he believed in - that being our industry. I do admire him for that. I may not have agreed with everything he said or did.

However, the basis for many of those decisions was from documents and facts that were considered "privilaged or confidential information" that had no business being in someone else's hands.

I know he would have had more of our support if he was to release documents to us that we never saw or ever will see.

I'll bet Mr. Valenti was swamped with decisions like that, and I know from experience many that I made in my line of work would be very unpopular decisions. I had the documents and facts, including the full story - not just hearsay, half-lies, half-truths and false rumors or one-sided stories to make those decisions.

Unfortunately, too many use hearsay, half-lies, half-truths, false rumors, and one-sided stories to make a decision. Those always turn out to be pure crap!

What frosts my butt is what seems to be the norm...guilty before proven innocent.

Brad, MPAA said 92%. The paper didn't say Jack said it. Why should we crucify Jack for that? We don't know who in the MPAA said it. It could have been a disgruntled janitor in the MPAA as far as we know. Everyone probably knows how the media gets some of their BS..by someone they interview that does not have the slightest idea what they are talking about.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-02-2004, 02:50 AM:

quote: Jiggiddy Jaggady J-hAwK wrote:
I'll post more about my conversation with him when I close out the issue with him...

What is this "issue" you speak of? You mention it but you make no point of reference. Are we all automatically to know what this "issue" is? If it is some piece of literature, I bet it is poorly written and without many points of reference as your post here is. Of course since you don't work in a real theater under real circumstances, your experience with Jack counts for very little.[av=d]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-02-2004, 07:39 AM:

The issue that I have with Valenti is that he doesn't seem to understand many of the issues on which he advocates so strongly. Whenever he is asked any sort of remotely technical question about film piracy, for example, he appears totally clueless (I'm sure that jhawk has read the interview with the MIT campus newspaper, for example...sorry I don't have a link to it). Whenever the film ratings system is questioned, he always seems to respond along the lines of "it's perfect as is and we don't need to change a thing." This lack of understanding substantially weakens any arguments that he tries to make. This makes him look like a puppet (which he mostly is), rather than one who has deeply studied every issue before making public statements about it.

I do give him credit for being a good politician (which is what he is) and a good advocate for the industry in general. I also give him credit for keeping the US government from regulating motion picture content (which would be a far greater disaster than any voluntary ratings system). Still, I'm happy to see him go, although I'm not convinced that the new guy will be any better.

quote:

MIT newspaper interviews Valenti

Real Dialogue: The Tech interviews Jack Valenti
By Keith J. Winstein
SENIOR EDITOR

Jack Valenti, the iconic 82-year-old who has headed the Motion Picture Association of America for the last 38 years, spoke at the MIT Communications Forum last Thursday. The MPAA offered The Tech a chance to ask Valenti questions after his talk, and -- as a former Tech news reporter interested in technology and copyright -- I got drafted.

Valenti is an incredibly polished advocate for the movie studios. He has numerous legislative and regulatory successes to his name, and his stated commitment to honest debate (he spoke passionately several times about his commitment to the “ideal of civic discourse” and his disgust at Washington, D.C.’s lack of it) is admirable.

But we don’t have a real debate on copyright issues. We have rival camps that rarely understand each other. Virtually everybody I know and encounter on the Internet thinks Valenti’s signal accomplishments are bad. He can claim credit for the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which make it illegal to build your own DVD player and well-nigh impossible to watch DVDs legally under the GNU/Linux operating system, as well as the Federal Communication Commission’s Broadcast Flag, which will make it illegal or virtually impossible to build your own digital television receiver or, again, watch HDTV under Linux.

Everybody in Hollywood, and everybody in Congress, seems to love these things. There is little compromise, meeting of the minds, or mutual understanding, between these two sides.

Three years ago, I organized an MIT IAP class and invited Valenti to come. (He politely declined.) When the MPAA called to ask if I wanted to talk with him for ten minutes last week, I finally had my chance to take a shot at reaching some tiny mutual understanding.

I found Valenti woefully unfamiliar with the arguments of “our side” -- the same arguments that “we” wank about every day on Zephyr, on Slashdot, and in 6.805 (Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier), the class I TAed for Professor Hal Abelson.

A compromise, or at least a solution to these issues that doesn’t involve outlawing all tinkering and all independent engineering, seems to be possible: we’re just not getting through to each other. The dystopia of Richard Stallman’s “The Right to Read” at www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html is not an inevitability. But if we can’t manage to have a real conversation with “the other side” -- and a longer one than my ten minutes with Valenti -- that’s where we might be headed.

Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

The Tech: You’re described by various people as the best lobbyist ever. Do you have any tips for the other side, about how they can achieve better victories in the legislative area?

Jack Valenti: I hope that I’m a good persuader, that I’m able to make advocacy of a cause that people say, “You know, that makes sense.” ‘Lobbyist’ has a connotation to me that gives me little shivers. But I like to believe that I try to make things simple to understand. And frankly, if I can understand it, then I figure everybody else can understand it, because I am not a technologist. ... But I try to make things simple and clear as I can, and I think that helps you persuade other people.

TT: Everybody I know thinks the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Broadcast Flag are awful. And everybody in Congress disagrees. This does not lead to good debate and good public policy, when people can’t even talk to each other. How can we have a good debate on these topics?

JV: I don’t know. I go on forums, and panels, and Rich [Taylor, an MPAA spokesman] does the same. We’re available to anybody. I never believe in hostile debates. That’s not my style. I believe that we ought to talk objectively about it. I think for anything that I’m advocating, I’m willing to be in an open debate with anybody about it. Because if my ideas have no bottom, then they ought not be even heard.

The broadcast flag -- if you are in your home, then you can copy anything that’s on over-the-air television to your heart’s content. The only time that you will know there’s a broadcast flag is if you try to take one of those copies and redistribute it on the Internet. Then, the flag says, ‘No, you can’t redistribute it.’ But you can do everything you’re doing right now -- you’ll never know there’s a broadcast flag. Well, why would people object to it?

TT: I’ll tell you, because I’m an engineer, I’m an engineering student, and this year I built a high-definition television, from scratch. But because of the broadcast flag, if I wanted to do that again after July 2005, that would be illegal.

JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets?

TT: Well, I’m talking about engineers.

JV: Let’s say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can’t have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can’t do it that way.

TT: Okay, let’s take a different example. Four years ago, you said that people who use Linux, which is about a million to two million people, who want to play DVDs, should get licensed DVD players and that those would be on the market soon.

JV: And we have those now.

TT: But today, you still cannot on the market actually buy a licensed DVD player for Linux.

JV: I didn’t know that.

TT: So the question is, do you think people who go to Blockbuster, they rent a movie, they bring it home, and they play it on Linux by circumventing the access control, are those people committing a moral transgression?

JV: I do not believe that you have the right to override an encryption. Because if you have the right to do it, everybody can do it. For whatever benign reason you have, somebody else has got one even more benign. But once you let one person deal in a digital copy -- and I don’t have to tell you; you know far better than I that, unlike in analog, the ten thousandth copy is as pure as the original -- it is a big problem. So once you let the barriers down for your perfectly sensible reason, you gotta let it down for everybody.

I don’t want to get into the definition of morality. I never said anything was immoral in what I was saying. I said it is wrong to take something that belongs to somebody else.

TT: Indeed, but are you doing that when you rent a movie from Blockbuster and you watch it at home? ... I run Linux on my computer. There’s no product I can buy that’s licensed to watch [DVDs]. If I go to Blockbuster and rent a movie and watch it, am I a bad person? Is that bad?

JV: No, you’re not a bad person. But you don’t have any right.

TT: But I rented the movie. Why should it be illegal?

JV: Well then, you have to get a machine that’s licensed to show it.

TT: Here’s one of these machines; it’s just not licensed.

[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line “qrpff” DVD descrambler.]

TT: If you type that in, it’ll let you watch movies.

JV: You designed this?

TT: Yes.

JV: Un-fucking-believable.

TT: So the question is, if I just want to watch a movie--I rent it from Blockbuster--is that bad?

JV: No, that’s not bad.

TT: Then why should it be illegal?

Rich Taylor, MPAA public affairs: It’s not. ... You could put it in a DVD player, you could play it on any computer licensed for it.

JV: There’s lots of machines you can play it on.

TT: None under Linux. There’s no licensed player under Linux.

JV: But you’re trying to set your own standards.

TT: No, you said four years ago that people under Linux should use one of these licensed players that would be available soon. They’re still not available -- it’s been four years.

JV: Well why aren’t they available? I don’t know, because I don’t make Linux machines.

Let me put it in my simple terms. If you take something that doesn’t belong to you, that’s wrong. Number two, if you design your own machine, you can’t fuss at people, because you’re one of just a few. How many Linux users are there?

TT: About two million.

JV: Well, I can’t believe there’s not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don’t know the answer to that... Well, you’re telling me a lot of things I don’t know.

TT: Okay. Well, how can we have this dialogue?

JV: Well, we’re having it right now. I want to try to find out the point you make on why are there no Linux licensed players. There must be a reason -- there has to be a reason. I don’t know.

[Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the MPAA, later pointed to one company, Intervideo, that has a license to sell GNU/Linux DVD software, although the company does not actually sell a product that Linux users can purchase. Linux users who want to watch DVDs should “perhaps buy a DVD player instead,” Taylor said, or “write to Intervideo and others, encourage them that they’re the market,” he said. Will Linux users ever be able to view DVDs on their computers without breaking the law? “I’m sure that day is not far away,” Taylor said.

A spokesman for Intervideo, Andy Marken, said the company’s product is only for embedded systems and that Intervideo has no plans to release a software player for end users.]

This story was published on Friday, April 16, 2004.
Volume 124, Number 20

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 07-02-2004, 10:50 AM:

* Brad, I wish you had phrased that a bit less pointedly. No, I do not assert to represent Film-Tech. Though perhaps Scott and I should go and visit Glickman, since the KSG is in our backyard.

I'm not really sure which "ranting bitch-fests" you mean, or where Jack has been seen "blaming theatre owners." Could you be more specific? (I don't think that blaming camcorders for piracy, however accurate, is blaming theatre owners.)

I would be a bit careful about attributing stats to the MPAA just because newspapers claim them. But in this case, I suspect that is a stat the MPAA distributes. Curiously, though, the closest I could find on their web site is "In 9 out of 10 cases, that first release is from a camcorded copy."

(That statement seems even more suspicious than the 92%, and it is curiously narrow. You'd certainly think the "first release" would more likely come from pre-release sources. Anyhow, it comes from http://www.mpaa.org/PiracyFactSheets/CamcorderPiracyFactSheet.pdf
)

I have a call in to the MPAA public affairs office asking them whether they stand behind the 92% stat that the Associated Press published (in Paul's link).

* Paul asks if it is fair to attribute to Jack what the MPAA has said. Well, yes and no. Jack is the mouthpiece of the MPAA--its head spokesman. It's very difficult to seperate what he says from what the MPAA says. Jack tends to cite MPAA press releases and statistics in his speeches, and he relies on his staff to get it right.

* Joe asks me what issue I was discussing with Jack. I'm not comfortable talking about it publically until it's done, sorry. I was trying to express that, after meeting him in person, I do not think the man is confused about piracy or how it works. He may see his priorities differently, but those are not exclusively his to choose, either. Above all, he strikes me as an honest guy who is legitimately trying to solve a very hard problem.

* Scott raises the point that Jack does not have the most technical of backgrounds. It's certainly true, and I think it is probably the strongest criticism of him. He depends very much on the accuracy and reliability of the information he is given by his staff.

Another point is that he has a set of stock answers to common questions that he provides, and he occasionally answers a question thinking that it is a slightly different one.

I have to say, though, I think that Keith's interview (in The Tech) was a little bit unfair. Keith only got to talk to Jack for a very short period of time (literally about 10 minutes), about questions that Jack didn't really know the answers to, nor did Keith really get a chance to explain all the technical issues. I think it's to Jack's credit that he tried to answer as best he could, and didn't just say "No comment"; he also admitted honestly the things he didn't know and was surprised by ("Un-fucking-believable").

--jhawk

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 07-02-2004, 02:45 PM:

Let's pool some cash and buy the SOB a DV cam as a retirement gift [Smile]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-02-2004, 03:24 PM:

Jhawk, you and I both know you will sit and have a lovely politically correct chit chat and tea all day long with anyone in the world, even someone as warm and fuzzy as Saddam. You also know that couldn't be further away from my "cut the crap" style. This is why you never seem to be able to understand my point.

Let's look at the meat of it, without the tea and without the PC nonsense. Valenti damn near pops a vein anytime pirating is brought into a speech. Geez, he isn't talking to a bunch of criminals awaiting paroll! He is talking to the very people who are in the industry who pirating affects. He accuses the theater owners/managers/staff of being responsible for 90-92% of all bootlegs out there, when any idiot knows that most bootlegs are from studio screeners. This is the biggest beef I and everyone else I have talked to have with this geezer. It's one thing to send out information packets requesting the assistance of theater personnel to help catch pirates, but he is going about it completely the wrong way and I don't think I know of anyone who works at a commercial theater that doesn't detest the man.

Nowadays we get security guards escorting the film prints to the screning dates just an hour or two before the show. Hardly any time to do a proper and full inspection, much less a pre-screening to catch any issues (which I believe bit the people at New Line in the ass at a screening of ROTK last year). This is incredibly inconvenient and insulting to the theater staff who must be treated like criminals...but that's not all. Now we have people wandering the theaters with night vision goggles, of which is insulting to the audience, and it IS distracting! But hey, nothing beats the full probing and damn near strip search that is being done these days just to enter the auditorium. No watches, no phones, no purses. I mean really, THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT CRIMINALS! This is the kind of treatment that our old pal Valenti has brought us, and fuck him for that.

See the problem?

And please do us all a favor and leave the "he's just a spokesman" crap out of this. He took the job and with that comes the responsibility as being "the MPAA guy". Few people have enough spare time nor care enough to research precisely who is the driving force behind this insulting madness that the MPAA has brought on. Besides, Valenti is the spokesman, not whoever this other guy is...so any way you slice it, as far as the people in the field are concerned, it's Valenti's fault.

The replacement guy may be just as big of an ass, or bigger (is that possible?) than Valenti himself. That still won't stop the masses from celebrating when September 1st hits. Hopefully he will have a clue and see that the current Valenti-type of attitude is NOT the solution and will start treating the people who work in this industry, as well as the patrons of this industry with a little respect. That's the only way they will get the kind of support that the MPAA and the studios really need to put an end to this pirating nonsense.

(The MPAA needs a representative who is not a puppet, someone who is not overly PC, and someone with a brain who isn't afraid to stand up in a meeting and throw this sort of thing that I just explained on the table. I've got my fingers crossed for this next guy.)

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-02-2004, 05:49 PM:

I think J-h.a.w.k. is just frazzed because he actually got to speak to THE Jack Valenti. He probably thinks that being at/from MIT makes him count a li'l more as well. It only makes his observations count less (much less) because like I said, he doesn't work in a real theater under real circumstances. If you don't feel like discussing the "issue", why did you bring it up?

Geez! Some people's kids.[av=n]

Posted by Dennis Udovich (Member # 1066) on 07-04-2004, 02:10 PM:

Valenti will be attending and speaking at the NATO Great States Convention, Lake Geneva, WI, Sept. 22. Managers and executives of Marcus Theatres will be attending this event during our Fall Manager's Meeting.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-04-2004, 04:12 PM:

"What're ya gonna do with those pies, boys?"

( Killer Klowns From Outer Space )

>>> Phil

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-04-2004, 04:39 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
He accuses the theater owners/managers/staff of being responsible for 90-92% of all bootlegs out there, when any idiot knows that most bootlegs are from studio screeners.

Let's turn this problem on its head and ask not what the source is for the pirated content, but how does it reach its customers? I can't believe that the industry (apart, possibly, from the soon-to-be-claiming-his-pension Jack Valenti) seriously believes that the odd teenager who camcorders a film to show to a few friends represents a serious economic threat. The real problem are the criminal gangs who obtain the content (through screeners or any other way) and then duplicate it on an industrial scale.

I was reading this book last weekend. The author noted that the earliest known form of systematic piracy emerged during the late teens/early 20s, and involved quite simply stealing 35mm release prints, exporting them to countries where that film hadn't been released yet and distributing them illegally (in some cases the distribution wasn't even illegal - this was long before the Berne Convention and the necessary copyright laws often hadn't been passed). Almost a century later, it seems that the same thing is happening, only with updated technology. For example in 1995, it was estimated that over 90% of the VHS copies of Hollywood films sold in China were bootleg copies. And these weren't produced by a few daisy-chained VCRs in someone's garage - they're made in full-scale duplication plants, operated openly and with the full knowledge of the authorities.

I'd guess that it just wouldn't make economic sense to try and stop small numbers of pirate copies made by private individuals in the developed world for themselves and perhaps one or two others. The money you'd need to spend on doing so - either on a technological solution or 'zero tolerance' law enforcement - wouldn't justify the return in increased sales of legitimate copies. But it might make sense for Valenti's successor to try going after the organised criminals instead. For example, slapping a 500% import tariff on Chinese consumer electronics until the authorities there close down the illegal DVD pressing plants might be a start.

Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 07-04-2004, 05:51 PM:

Some time ago I saw an interview with some big-shot from the MPAA...I think it was Valenti, but have since forgotton.

Anyhow, there was some major brujaja over some film that should have received an "X" rating. Instead, the MPAA gave it an "R" rating because the extreme sexuality was done in an "artistic" sense. During the interview, once again I think it was Valenti, was being grilled about this situation, and he staunchly defended his decision. Then the question was asked...Did you personally view the film before approving this rating? Towhich he responded "No."

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 08-13-2004, 01:18 PM:

Back in early July, I said, "I have a call in to the MPAA public affairs office asking them whether they stand behind the 92% stat that the Associated Press published (in Paul's link)."

(This being about the allegation that 92% of online and worldwide film piracy is camcorder-derived.)

My results were not very satisfactory. According to the MPAA Public Affairs department, the 92% figure is an old number from an old study and a new study is in progress.

--jhawk

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 08-13-2004, 01:28 PM:

At least they answered your question, and were upfront about doing a new study. [Cool]

What would the percentage represent? The number of features pirated? Or the number of pirated copies found?

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 08-13-2004, 05:54 PM:

Don't worry about Valenti's successor. They propably just did a brain transplant... [Roll Eyes]