August 31, 2004
"I have said, technology is what causes the problem, and technology will be the salvation of the problem."
- Blogger Engadget interviews Jack Valenti.
Other interviews with Jack
More on Jack: DeCSS: Hackers vs Hollywood Jack's Testimony about Copyright Piracy and Terrorism
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My favorite moment from the MIT interview: [Winstein shows Valenti his six-line
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More Valenti stuff The 1982 hearings into VCRs This video cassette recorder and the blank tape threaten profoundly the life-sustaining protection, I guess you would call it, on which copyright owners depend, on which film people depend, on which television people depend and it is called copyright....We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry that is able to retrieve a surplus balance of trade and whose total future depends on its protection from the savagery and the ravages of this machine. etc etc Fast forward 20 years and... U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman, Fritz Hollings (Democrat-South Carolina) Digital Content Copyright – Full Committee Hearing
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When you go to your department store and you buy 10 Cognac glasses and two weeks later you break two of them, the store doesn’t give you two backup copies. Where did this backup copy thing come from? A digital thing lasts forever. Oy. Explains a lot, that.
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The cost of making and marketing movies, for example, has risen to nerve-shattering heights. In 2000, the total cost to the major studios for making and marketing their films was, on the average, an astounding $82 Million! Okay, I'm very much in favor of protecting copyrights for artists, but this is the most bullshit rationale. You alarmed at the rising cost of movies? Stop making such expensive movies. I'm tired of getting the ticket price jacked up on me, so everybody'll be happy.
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Another good article on Engadget is Mr. P Diddy's diamond encrusted Ipod. I want one.
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And show some proof, any proof, that copyright violations caused by file sharing have a demonstrable negative impact.
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Having read several of these interviews, I think I can say without fear of contradiction that this man doesn't even understand how analogies work, never mind technology, copyright or social behaviour. Cognac glasses. Feh.