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too-short excerpt of a too-short conversation
Keith Winstein, among other things the author of a six-line program to circumvent CSS, got to talk to Jack Valenti (MPAA head, now retired, I believe) and Rich Taylor (the MPAA's PR guy) for all of ten minutes, and then wrote up some excerpts of the conversation for The Tech. It is not, as BoingBoing bills it, Winstein running circles around Valenti. It's far better explained in Winstein's opening paragraphs:
When the MPAA called to ask if I wanted to talk with [Valenti] for ten minutes last week, I finally had my chance to take a shot at reaching some tiny mutual understanding.Cory Doctorow's unhelpful commentary (titled "MIT makes Jack Valenti look like an idiot") is exactly the sort of stupidity that prevents mutual understanding from being reached, and Doctorow unfortunately engages in this childish "COPYRIGHT BAD!" stance every time there's a copyright-related issue in BoingBoing. Personally, I'm not in favour of the more draconian copyright measures, such as the DMCA, CSS, and the Broadcast Flag, particularly when they are effectively treating all consumers as criminals. To use Jack Valenti's own reasoning: by implementing something like the Broadcast Flag, you're legislating against the minority who wish to break the law. And "[y]ou 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." I'd love to see more of Winstein's interview, and more to the point I'd like to actually see Valenti & co. sit down with a group of people like Winstein - intelligent, and seeking openness, but not the sort of bible-thumping sloganeer frequently found in the "Information Wants To Be Free!" ranks - and have them bash out these issues a bit more.
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I didn't know much about the history of copyright before taking this class, but what chafes my buns about it was that it was originally intended to offer limited protection to a work's creator. As opposed to, say, giving Disney sole hold over Mickey for all eternity.
As a proponent of open access it totally pisses me off how organizations like the RIAA have abused the concept of copyright. As a writer I can't be against it entirely.
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Fantastic review
When given the opportunity to repudiate this testimony (which also included the memorable chestnut that "the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone"), Valenti declined.
I have never said that copyright is bad. I have never said that information wants to be free.
I have spent months at the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group, the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, and OASIS's Rights Technical Committee engaged in lengthy negotiations with these people. I spent my Bank Holiday weekend writing a filing for the FCC on why Trusted Computing shouldn't be mandated in every radio-equipped PC. You know what? The other side of this debate isn't debating: they're attacking.
Andy Setos, president, Fox Studios, on how the Broadcast Flag would prevent another VCR from coming into existence, requiring the studios to come up with new ways of making money.
Larry Kenswil, president, Universal eLabs, on why Universal did not believe in creating rights-expression languages that can model fair use.
It's well and good to sit there in your armchair talking about constructive debate with ideologues like Valenti -- men who are willing to compare their opponents to serial-killers and terrorists, men who will use race-baiting to sway law-makers -- but you should at minimum take a moment to understand who these people are, and what their on-record positions are.
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Fantastic review
Your pal,
"Twit"
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And you missed your cue to say, "My friends call me Smug, but you can call me Mr. Twit."
Fantastic review
Re: Fantastic review
Fantastic review
Re: Fantastic review
I think, mind you, that that particular question is answered (accidentally) here:If this is your customer base, would you get into this market?
Now, assuming I was pro-MPAA, why should I not accord you the same ignorance you've accorded Valenti? You've cited his 1982 testimony both on this post and on a previous post on Joi Ito's blog where Joi is discussing having met the guy and talked to him. Your posts in BoingBoing referring to Valenti repeat the Boston Strangler mantra, and in general your writing in BoingBoing on the more negative aspects of copyright are barely worthy of a Slashdot troll. Incidently, you've cited in several places that Valenti was given the opportunity to refute the Boston Strangler quote and refused to do so. I've found one interview, which everyone else seems to point at, so I'm assuming that it's this one; in which I read the interviewer using the Boston Strangler quote as the setup for a question. He doesn't ask Valenti about it directly, and Valenti doesn't address it. It's an opportunity, sure, but Valenti goes about answering the question (well, would you look at that? he's *answering the question!*) without making any reference to the setup.
I don't agree that his commentary was racist, or xenophobic. He stated facts: VCRs and tapes made in Japan, in automated factories. How does this differ from saying, say, cars made in Detroit, in automated factories? Pentiums made in Ireland, in automated factories?
All you're doing with this repetition is giving me reason, were I an MPAA advocate, to simply disregard your comments as coming from the Doctorow playbook. Or perhaps even the EFF playbook, were I to take a particularly dim view of the circles you hang out in.
The fact is, you gain nothing from exclusion. If you go into a debate with Valenti, and nothing comes of it, there was at least potential for something to come of it. If you deny that potential, then, well, you get exactly the negative outcome you predicted.
You're a smart guy. Some of your writing is pretty good. But you seem to have picked up the brash and showy aspects of your adopted nation in place of the (stereotypically, at least) conciliatory approach of your original homeplace. What I said originally about your "Copyright bad!" stance is indeed incorrect; it's a reduction of your frequent harangues of DRM, Valenti, and the more odious aspects of America's attempt to make the world kowtow to its big business, which are generally written in an inflammatory style more typical of the aforementioned "Information Wants To Be Free" cheerleaders. I agree with your standpoint, but your delivery is rubbish, because it's written for the people who already agree with you and lends nothing to the causes you purport to promote.
One last thing: I am assuming your ironic subject line is referring to my post as applied to your BoingBoing entry. Yet irony piled on irony, aside from the "copyright bad" comment I think mine is factually more correct, and certainly far more useful to anyone interested in an even-handed debate. Of course, it is my post, so I would think that.