Just finished a lengthy interview with Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America. An interesting, eloquent and extremely likable man.
Valenti mentioned the bill introduced by Dianne Feinstein yesterday to make camcording in movie theaters a felony and subject to five years in prison. I hadn’t heard about that, but SFGate has the story here:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California moved Thursday to protect increasingly beleaguered movie and music producers and artists by proposing a new federal crackdown on pirates, especially those who use the Internet to distribute their goods.
The proposal, which Feinstein introduced at a Capitol press conference with fellow Judiciary Committee member Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, zeroes in on two issues: the illegal recording of movies in theaters to make bootleg versions and distributing pirated recordings and films even before they go out on the market. …
Today is also the day the Motion Picture Association of America promised to decide whether groups besides Oscar voters will be allowed to receive “for your consideration” award screeners this year. The screener ban remains in place for such groups as the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Screen Actors Guild, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and critics organizations.
From my conversation with Valenti, my guess is: It won’t happen. He remains steadfast in holding on to his policy of curbing Internet movie piracy by clamping down on leaks from screeners.
If I were running the show, I think it would be fairly easy to arrange dozens of private screenings of eligible films over the Internet by using technology the studios already have in place with Movielink.
Meantime, the Los Angeles Times is reporting this today:
Jack Valenti, Hollywood’s voice in Washington for nearly 38 years, most likely will step down in early January as chief of the Motion Picture Assn. of America while retaining the chairman’s title and continuing to oversee the movie ratings system he fathered, sources said Thursday.
People familiar with the matter said Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.) remained the clear front-runner to replace the 82-year-old Valenti, who last summer disclosed he was planning for succession but left the timing vague. …
And finally, this bit of news: I didn’t know Jack Valenti owns a TiVo!
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What does Jack do with his TiVo?
I should have asked, but ran out of time. He seemed to indicate he uses it just like everyone else. I can’t remember if the studios and networks have dropped all facets of their litigation against TiVo, but clearly TiVo never upset them the way ReplayTV did.