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The Hollywood lobby group has finally weighed in on the plan by Wikipedia and others to go dark tomorrow to protest the MPAA-supported anti-piracy bills in Congress. The money quote is at the end: CEO Chris Dodd says he hopes that “the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this ‘blackout’ to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.” The House’s Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate’s Protect IP Act would empower the government to block overseas sites that traffic in pirated content. The MPAA says that will save U.S. jobs. But tech companies say officials might abuse their power by using it to punish legitimate sites.
Here’s the full MPAA statement:
WASHINGTON —The following is a statement by Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) on the so-called “Blackout Day” protesting anti-piracy legislation:
“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.
It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.
A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”
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Hey Dodd,
This is rich from someone who as a senator got a sweetheart mortgage deal while so many lost their homes.
Go fuck yourself.
Ditto. Dodd is a total hypocrite that has stuffed his pockets with Quid pro quo.
yep. I agree with your statement. New math… Chris + Dodd = EVIL
What John Q Public said.
“It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information use their services…”
Glad to see the MPAA is so concerned about protecting the rights of Internet users.
I am dumbfounded by the idiocy of Mr. Dodd’s statement.
Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales quoted MLK yesterday.
The homepages of both Wikipedia and Google will contain politically-motivated lies tomorrow.
Incidentally, Wikipedia is having its cake and eating it too. Their site will be available via mobile. So the publicity stunt worked, they got their day in the spotlight, and they gave themselves an out.
Unions and the US Chamber of Commerce both support the anti-piracy effort. It will go through eventually… and then Big Tech will find a new way to steal & profit from the arts.
Wikipedia does not benefit from piracy whatsoever. They don’t sell advertising. They’re easily one of the most non-biased organizations out there today. They’re taking this action because it’s simply the right thing to do.
We didn’t throw out the entire U.S. Constitution so that retailers could ensure nobody shoplifts. The MPAA needs to learn that they don’t have the right to take over control of the entire internet because a few people are stealing their movies.
Sergey Brin is shoveling $$$ into the Wikimedia Foundation. Don’t think Google isn’t pleased as punch that Wikipedia is lobbying for Google’s interests.
The arts you’re referring to wouldn’t EXIST without technology. Or maybe you’ve never heard of Thomas Edison?
Piracy would be far less of a problem if Hollywood would stop trying to promote The Save Our Pampered Asses act and actually learn something about how to sell online. Amazon ain’t bitchin’ about piracy, they’re just raking in the cash.
I’m somewhat surprised you ever figured out how to access the Internet, let alone post. Broad claim? No more than your ridiculous unsourced, unjustified prattle.
No SOPA – find another way because FREEDOM is more important than HOLLYWOOD.
If Chris Dodd and the MPAA want to stop the hyperbole,they should start with themselves and stop acting like these bills are the only way to stop piracy.
Opponents of these bills agree that piracy is an issue that needs to be addressed. These bills are simply the wrong way to do it.
I plan to vote against anyone who supports SOPA (Barbara Boxer for instance who refused to meet with her constituents before the vote) that’s not a stunt. What was a Stunt was the MPAA hiring Chris Dodd
Never be surprised by the idiocy of the MPAA:
“But now we are faced with a new and troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life, and we are facing it from a thing called the Video Cassette Recorder” — MPAA President Jack Valenti in 1982
Like. Need a Like button to click here…
Me0w nailed it.
Show me a job lost in the film industry due to piracy. Just one.
First they tied layoffs to the writers’ strike, then to the economic meltdown, then to Amazon and Netflix, now to piracy. Just face facts – the layoffs are due to corporations monopolizing and consolidating media empires. Why have four specialty brands or allow rental companies to buy in bulk, when you can just do it all yourself with fewer ways to slice the pie.
exactly
Show me an actor in recent times that lost their job due to Piracy. The only ones who lose their job are the ones who work off camera and are not suits. Show me a suit who is now broke due to piracy.
If you can’t fathom how piracy results in a loss of jobs then you’ve never worked in an entertainment sector directly tied to it.
I’ve seen millions of dollars lost on good films that were illegally leaked worldwide just as distribution deals were being carried out across the globe. Multi-million dollar deals with foreign distributors in every country hold back their money to sales agents and production companies when piracy occurs, and many prod cos are relying on ONE film to be a hit. Now that prod co who has already spent X amount of dollars on making a feature film is left in the dust.
Think what you want of Dodd, but the fact remains that piracy is sucking the life out of many hard working people in the entertainment community.
Also, claiming that the studios shouldnt use aggregates like rental companies to funnel their product would axe more jobs than you can possibly imagine.
“I’ve seen millions of dollars lost on good films that were illegally leaked worldwide just as distribution deals were being carried out across the globe.”
There is no concrete proof, online or otherwise, that indicates whether any single person who downloaded or pirated a film would have paid for it in the first place. The reasons behind why people pirate are myriad – sometimes it’s because a film isn’t imported to a region of the world, sometimes it has to with the quality of the work, sometimes it has to do with people wanting to “try before they buy”…there’s no firm evidence. The only thing I know for certain is that some of the most popular video games, movies and television shows are also some of the most pirated – they’re the ones that get the top searches on line, get hundreds of thousands of views, etc.
“Claiming that the studios shouldnt use aggregates like rental companies to funnel their product”
Not rental companies – direct distribution. Look at the video game industry – Valve’s Steam software is a centralized service that sells games far below their physical price using cloud technology, and it’s the biggest in its class. Netflix has done it, and has also been successful.
Who leaked the material? The only way that the material was leaked was by an inside job.
Does that make it any less piracy? Chinese pirates get perfect copies of films by bribing foreign exhibitors, or from stealing prints of films while they’re in customs, or by duplicating the masters when they’re being published on Blu-Ray in China… it doesn’t matter WHERE the pirated copies come from, it’s still piracy.
And yes, people lose their jobs. A LOT of people have lost their jobs. The film business is in the dumper over the last 10 years and it’s explicitly due to the fact that today’s kids would rather steal movies (even crappy cam’ed movies) than pay to see them.
The answer, obviously, isn’t something to anti-democratic and crushing as SOPA, nor is it suing people who use file-sharing services, but the laws clearly need to be stepped up. The idea that I can go to ExtraTorrent and see 3 of my movies there that -I AM NOT BEING PAID FOR BY THE PEOPLE WHO DOWNLOAD AND WATCH THEM- is proof positive that piracy is a problem.
People call this generation “The Millenials,” but I call them “The Napster Generation” because none of them feel that they should have to pay for entertainment, whether that be music, tv, or movies. These are all products which cost money to create. Their creators are due money if you watch or listen to them. This generation, however, has broken that compact, and soon there will be no movies, tv, or music for them to enjoy. What’ll they steal, then?
“People call this generation “The Millenials,” but I call them “The Napster Generation”.
What about the generation that perfected global tax avoidance (ie. public revenue theft)? Or crashed the housing market and are disrupting global food markets and it’s security? What about the ‘forced’ privatization of global public assets, worth unspeakably more than what is lost to downloading, what do you think it will cost to rebuild the IMFs 2008 poster child for successful privatization: Egypt?
The “economic compact” is the least of our problems if the social compact is seriously disrupted. As long as public policy is being used to support corporate agglomeration (masquerading as efficiency) and wealth-hoarding, then social problems, like piracy (but not sharing), will expand.
What Chris Dodd refers to as a “disservice to people who rely on them” and “an abuse of power” I refer to as “yet another reason to donate money to Wikipedia.” As someone who uses Wikipedia way too much, I assure you, Chris, I’ll survive a day without it.
Also, I don’t know how Dodd’s head didn’t explode at the irony of that “abuse of power” line.
I use WIKI a lot of times during the day to get things done. Without Wiki, I might as well take the day off and lose money.
Well boo-hoo, your FREE service is cut-off for one day while you’re losing money.
‘…is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today…’ the Senator is speaking from experience :-p
Nice try neck tie, I’m still with Wikipedia on this all the way. Nothing more to say because John Q Internet at the top said it all very eloquently. Nice one John Q.
If the MPAA is truly interested in stopping the hyperbole maybe they should acknowledge that the $58 billion loss figure that they love to trot out is nothing more than hot air and lies.
The blackouts are not stunts. They are bringing attention to the problem, and flushing out those that support the problem. For example, the MPAA and Dodd.
I’m just clad to see for once that the MPAA has taken on someone their own size. For once they are facing opposition with some muscle, and it is looking like they will loose this fight. The White House has signaled they aren’t going to support this legislation. I think it’s pretty much over.
. . . and boycotts and protests punish only the boycotters and protesters, right?
No one has “punished users (customers)” more than Hollywood. Can’t wait until the system of horrible product and corporate bureaucracy eventually collapses on itself. The users have chosen and it’s not with the MPAA.
not surprise dodd and mpaa are calling foul for the black outs for they want the power these bills though the idea to stop online piracy is good the bills are flawed and wold give the government the temptation to wind up abusing and censoring the internet. after all how dare companies like Wikiepedia and others try to protect themselves from a bad bill being passed and get in the way of the big fat cats that buy congress who want this new power
hello, movie business? meet the record business. say hello to your future.
Dodd and the MPAA are just infuriated that their plan to turn the Internet into Cable TV has hit a bump in the road.
Piracy is just a cover story, and as far as the billions and billions of dollars of damages that are claimed, well, a wise old CFO once warned me about financial statements issued from an industry whose primary product is works of fiction.
What MPAA and RIAA are really afraid of is the Louis CK effect. The guy sold his creation directly to the public over the Internet, at a reasonable price with no copy protection, and made more money than he ever had working through gatekeeper corporations whose value added doesn’t even come close to the percentage they skim off the top.
Can’t wait to see Louis CK’s version of Die Hard 6. Who is going to make giant action films like Mission Impossible 4 out of their own pocket? Not all of us only want to watch YouTube for the rest of our lives.
If these Die Hard 6 movies are worth going to see, people will pay for the experience. IMO, they’re usually not, so they’ll die off. The market will correct itself.
If Chris Dodd really cared about our jobs, the very people who make so many films and television programs possible, he would vocally support deep audits into each studio’s financial books. Piracy isn’t what’s killing actually Hollywood – it’s pure greed at the expense of the content creators at the hands of the entertainment conglomerates.
I find it ironic that everyone on this board has come out and obliterated Dodd’s words and slammed the actions of the MPAA, without offering any alternative methods.
Does this mean that you are all in support of piracy? It sure as hell seems like it, because none of you have offered any alternative suggestions, and most of you talk about FREEDOM! (Freedom, last time I checked, didn’t condone stealing films off the internet) whilst also accusing actors and studio heads of never having lost a job over piracy, which means you think that the industry is overpaid and deserves to be ripped off. Nice work.
So just because an actor got paid $20 million to make a film, or a studio head made a profit from a film that he/she helped put together, it’s OK to steal it? So by that theory, stealing from people who earn more money than the average person, should probably be made legal and drafted into a revised First Amendment?
Yeah. Let’s rip off the studios that invest upwards of $200 million dollars into a SINGLE film for OUR entertainment (Yes, in case you didn’t notice, they make films for PEOPLE) and then say that they already make enough money, so it’s OK to steal their product.
I’m pretty certain that if any of you invested over $200 million into something, you’d sure as hell be trying to see that you not only get your money back, but that you see some profit for taking such a financial risk. Unless you’re a pirate, in which case you never would have had the balls to try such a venture in the first place. You’d be too busy jerking off whilst waiting for a film to download.
Piracy is booming due to the tight asses of this world, who refuse to shell out ten bucks for a film at the cinema. The same tight asses who condone their behaviour by saying that films are all a rip off, as well as justify their actions by saying ‘The film wasn’t worth it anyway.’
Awesome theories, man. So I guess if you go to a restaurant and order a steak, eat it, and then say you didn’t like it, you should get your money back too.
I find it ironic that the majority of people slamming this new bill, are blowing so much more hot air than the politician’s they accuse of doing the same.
Alternatives, there are many but it’s not our job to develop them. Off the cuff I think providing better and reliable library access (ala Netflix) would be a start, subscription services, and otherwise eliminating the fractured nature of online media.
You label it piracy but can you name one website where you can go and pay for and download any movie?! You can’t because no place exists with a reliably large library. This is something the movie industry can fix and yet refuses to move on. Consumers want good choices and Netflix is a good start.
Granting de facto control of the Internet to the MPAA so that they may prevent what amounts to petty theft (on the part of individuals) is way more dangerous that forcing MPAA and their ilk to simply DO IT BETTER.
Offer a better product.
Stealing someone’s hard work is unacceptable, I hate when it happens to me but I would never suppose it granted me draconian Chinese-firewall authority — and I’m not a big movie studio who aren’t exactly known for their good faith behavior.
Other alternatives include working with browser and search engine developers to more easily identify fraudulent websites, attacking the advertising networks and the aforementioned clearing-house website where studios could set their own price but it would consumers could trust to be a full library (nothing sucks quite like finding the movie you want is out-of-stock or not available).
There are alternatives. The truth is you’re ignoring them.
Google is too firmly in control of the Internet to ever let the MPAA take it over.
a bit wordy, can you edit and re-post? THANKS!
Cheers to that. Finally some brains on this Board.
“So I guess if you go to a restaurant and order a steak, eat it, and then say you didn’t like it, you should get your money back too.”
Um… I think you can in a lot of restaurants that care about making sure they’re customers are happy. I’ve worked in quite a few places like that during college, actually.
Not that you care, but the people who are anti-SOPA aren’t that way because they love piracy. They’re anti-SOPA because it’s patently un-American for the government to have that much control over what is transmitted across the Inter-tubes.
Stop fighting Redbox. Stop delaying shows up to eight days on Hulu. Piracy skyrocketed when Fox delayed Hell’s Kitchen, Fringe, etc. Today’s world is digital and multimedia one. There are numerous opportunities to take advantage of multimedia marketing and promotion.
Targeted advertising: Hulu proves that people will sit through reasonable amounts of commercials in exchange for watching shows the net day at their convenience. The targeted advertising opportunities that are going to waste is just shameful. Stop complaining about analog dollars vs. digital dimes. Those digital dimes add up across multiple distribution platforms – laptops, smartphones, tablets.
Savvy artists are using multimedia tools such as YouTube, Ustream, Twitter and Facebook to build their fanbases and drive traffic to their projects. Control and greed are really at the heart of this. In the multimedia age reducing piracy means making content available easier and across multiple platforms in a more timely manner.
CBS is raking in the dough because they wisely started offering the NCAA Basketball Tournament FREE online. They consistently sell out the online inventory to advertisers. The NFL finally is seeing the light and tested the waters offering up the Wild Card games online for FREE.
Embrace the future, the possibilities are huge for those not afraid to try new pathways.
So if someone doesn’t know how to fight termites, it still behooves them to listen to burn their house down because the local contractor suggests that?
The thing is that recognizing that the suggested philips head screwdriver doesn’t fit the torx screw before stripping the top of the screw by trying to force it to do a job it isn’t capable of doing doesn’t mean that you have to know where the torx screw drivers are.
These bills do not solve piracy, they are not going to restore the studios bottom lines, and they will damage the internet. Anyone who actually looks at them gets that.
But what I do know is that passing this bill isn’t going to solve the problems the guilds have with the benefit funds that depend on DVD sales, nor is it going to stop studios from seeing lower box office receipts. One is doomed because the legal digital marketplace is going to kill it and the studios aren’t willing to share those profits. The other is doomed because brilliant corporate minds like those running the MPAA haven’t realized that if your workers wages don’t keep up with the cost of living the first things that get cut are luxuries like going to the movies not food.
Oh you mean like the $200 million that was invested in Green Lantern for our entertainment that had barely a story and special effects. Even the fanboys did not like it.
Where is the innovation ? Where are the original stories ? Why the remakes ? Why no distribution for indies ? Why discourage streaming movies ?
Hollywood can spend millions on crappy movies, call it entertainment, slap on 3D and expect the public to pay. Well, those days are over. Have you priced a movie ticket ? Hollywood people living in the stratosphere cannot understand why people who live on planet earth do not want to go the movies and they respond by trying to kill the internet and censor it in the name of piracy ? Their true colors and greed has been exposed. The writing is on the wall.
Remember the time when we had to buy a heavily marked up CD filled with not so great songs because we wanted one good song ? The Napster generation dragged the recording industry kicking and screaming into the light and Itunes was born. This could be a good thing for the movie industry if they choose to innovate and be the distributors of their own content through the web and streaming media on multiple devices. Netflix does it, so why not the studios themselves ? They will not innovate, they have ceased to create, be original and now they are trying to stifle creativity. Well, they can adapt to the new reality or die.
always felt the mpaa was creepy.
Does Mr. Dodd realize what he just said here?
“It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.”
This would hold true to the following:
US Government Senators, Representatives, etc.
Presidents past and our present.
PAC lobbyists
All Mainstream news outlets (fox, msnbc, abc, nbc, cbs)
I stand behind Wikipedia, Reddit, and others doing the blackout. GOOD for them. If I don’t have wiki for one day…omgosh I will survive. Seriously. I can use the ENTIRE internet to source out my questions.
Mr. Dodd is clearly not getting it. 1%-er.
I actually know Chris Dodd. He’s a fucking hack, bought and paid.
Amen.