Film Lobbyist Jack Valenti Dies

Jack Valenti, known within the PWNED circle for describing the VCR as the Boston strangler of the American film producer, died on Thursday of complications arising from an earlier stroke. The powerful lobbyist has inspired a cornucopia of obituaries--some sweet with praise and others sizzling with the flavor of long latent controversy.

Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America from 1966 to 2004, is also remembered for having fathered the modern movie ratings system, acting as an advisor to Lyndon Johnson, and for being an irrepressably grandiloquent speaker.

The RIAA and the MPAA Want Pretexting Back

The RIAA and the MPAA are none-to-happy about the anti-pretexting bill put into place by President Bush back in January, and as such, recently submitted an amendment to the bill in California that would allow the two organizations to utilize pretexting in their endless search for online pirates.

Although the amendment has not gone through yet, it would certainly be a dangerous precedent if it did. The anti-pretexting bill really does a public service in protecting citizens from corporate overreach - we can only hope that it is turned down.

The U.S., China, and the WTO

The U.S., China, and the WTO have gotten themselves in a three-way dance over China's policy against piracy. The U.S have formally complained to the WTO stating that China is a) not doing enough to curb piracy while b) simultaneously putting too many restrictions on U.S. imports (which can only encourage piracy).

Over at Techdirt, they explore problem b a little more in depth. In a Wall Street Journal article graph, both China and France, two countries who have the strongest import restriction on film, are shown to be the two places where the MPAA is loosing the most revenue. The claim is that the U.S. government should be arguing more for a lift of import restrictions rather than stricter piracy rules.

The U.S. government seems to arguing for both to me, although I agree with the TechDirt author that focusing on less-restrictive trade would be a better avenue of pursuit. U.S. priorities seem to be a little backwards in this case .

Sniffing Out Piracy

So here's a new way to crack down on piracy: Two trained labradors, named Lucky and Flo, were able to sniff out 50,000 bootleg DVDS in Malaysia! They were sent out last month as a way to crack down on movie piracy and it's the third time they've been successful. They're supposedly on loan to Malaysia from the MPAA. They are trained to sniff a chemical used in the disks. Malaysia is among the world's top illegal movie disc producers and exporters, according to the MPAA and the US government. It's also on the US's watch list of serious copyright violators.

But, not everyone likes dogs. Some movie pirates have reportedly placed a bounty on the two dogs (...poor Lucky and Flo). Neil Gane, the MPAA's Senior Operations Executive, said the MPAA was "taking the threat seriously" and was "factoring the threat when planning operations."