Christopher J. Dodd
All the rumors being reported by the mainstream press as a foregone conclusion were actually correct. This week the Motion Picture Association of America announced that Christopher Dodd, the former U.S. Senator from Connecticut, would become their chairman and chief executive beginning March 17th.
The position, often viewed as Hollywood’s top lobbyist, had been vacant for a year. MPAA president, Bob Pisano, filled in during that time and did what many consider to be a stellar job; he made sure Congress banned two movie futures trading exchanges and gained the Federal Communication’s approval for Selective Output Control (SOC) technology which is meant to prevent home entertainment devices from pirating video-on-demand content. Pisano will help Dodd make the transition into his new role with the MPAA.
Some news reports pointed out that Dodd, who is 66, comes to the job with no entertainment industry experience. But Jack Valenti, who led the MPAA for 38 years, came to the job with the same deficit in 1966. Though Dodd has a few industry connections with the likes of Robert Redford and Warren Beatty, from whom he sought advice before taking the position, it is his political background the MPAA found so appealing.
As a senator with five-terms under his belt, Dodd has a bit of experience negotiating complicated deals and drafting legislation like the Family and Medical Leave Act. During his 30 year run in the Senate he’s made a few influential friends in Washington. As an added bonus, Dodd has a reputation of being an intelligent and amiable person, traits which helped him during an unsuccessful campaign for President in 2008.
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Popularity: 2% [?]
Dan Glickman and John Fithian at ShoWest
The National Association of Theatre Owners president, John Fithian, and the outgoing chairman of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, Dan Glickman, trumpeted 2009′s record breaking box office grosses as well as advances in piracy protection during their annual “State of the Industry” address at ShoWest on Tuesday. What seemed more important to everyone in attendance however was that the speech marked the last appearance by Glickman as the head of the MPAA.
Not that Glickman plans on disappearing entirely. As he put it moments before walking onstage to deliver his remarks, “It may not be my last time at ShoWest, hopefully it is not. John has promised to invite me every year, but it’s my last time in this job.” Glickman is leaving his post April 1st to take over as head of the non-profit organization Refugees International.
Of course, technically this will be the last time Glickman attends ShoWest since NATO will be taking the show over next year and changing its name to CinemaCon. Glickman may not have to worry about getting an invite though, for Fithian had nothing but kind words to say about him. “He really has contributed an amazing amount of leadership and support to this industry over the last six years, from intellectual property to the ratings system to opening up new markets oversees,” Fithian said of Glickman. He’s been just a terrific partner. . . he will be sorely missed by those of us in the movie business.”
Speaking of the movie business, it’s apparently doing quite well, at least theatrically. Fithian highlighted the USD $30 billion international box office gross earned in 2009 with USD $10.6 billion coming from North American, an increase of more than 10%. The NATO exec credits the ongoing theatrical success to advances in technology which have allowed for better presentations at modern luxury cinemas and the ease of purchasing tickets on mobile devices or online. Studios were also major contributors by spreading out their releases according to Fithian:
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Popularity: 28% [?]
Last Thursday when the Motion Picture Association of America made public an ex parte communication they sent to the FCC in defense of a waiver request it caused a flurry of headlines about studios going to war with exhibitors over release windows. To be sure, the letter sent by the MPAA’s lawyers, as well as the press release they sent out the same day directly refer to release windows. The headline of the press release boldly reads “MPAA Seeks FCC Okay For Transmission of First Run Movies Directly To Consumers”. However the MPAA may simply be hiding behind the concept of protecting content during shortened release windows as camouflage for their true motive; securing high definition digital content as it is distributed into the electronic ether of the home by controlling which devices can playback and display the content.
The MPAA’s letter was sent as a rebuttal to a communication sent to the FCC in October by Public Knowledge arguing the waiver not be granted. PK (as they are often referred to) is based in Washington D.C. and considers and is a public interest group that focuses its efforts on digital technology. The second paragraph of the MPAA’s letter and third paragraph of the press release reads in part:
As MPAA has detailed throughout this proceeding, grant of the waiver would for the first time allow millions of consumers to view high-value, high-definition theatrical films during an early release window that is not available today. MPAA has explained that release of this high-value content as part of an earlier window, especially with respect to movies released for home viewing close to or even during their initial theatrical run, necessarily requires the highest level of protection possible through use of SOC.
Ignoring the reference to SOC for the time being (I’ll get to it in a bit), one can see how the phrase “close to or even during their initial theatrical run” might make motion picture exhibitors angry enough to storm MPAA headquarters. It didn’t help that outgoing MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman is quoted in the press release saying:
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Popularity: 23% [?]
The Motion Picture Association of America has been hinting for some time now that internet service providers should prevent copyrighted material such as movies and televisions shows from being distributed illegally through their high speed broadband networks. Back in July of this year, the MPAA filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission over the “net neutrality” issue, warning the agency that any laws put into place should allow providers to monitor their network traffic to detect the transmission of pirated intellectual property.
On Tuesday MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman pulled no punches in speaking about the issue at a seminar titled Legal Risk Management in the Web 2.0 World . (Try saying that seminar title five times really quickly). CNet.com quoted Glickman as saying:
“Their [ISPs] revenue bases depend on legitimate operations of their networks and more and more they’re finding their networks crowded with infringed material, bandwidth space being crowded out. Many of them are actually getting into the content business directly or indirectly. This is not an us-versus-them issue.”
The reality is, in the United States ISPs are relatively immune from the liability of their networks being used to distribute pirated material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act established in 1998, an ISP is not held responsible for the illegal activity of their subscribers as long as they “they don’t condone copyright infringement, that they remove infringing material when notified and that they aren’t deriving financial benefit from it.” So, don’t look for your internet provider to boast that they have the fastest bit torrent downloads any time soon.
What it seems Glickman is suggesting is that ISPs either prevent pirated material from being transmitted over their networks or that they throttle the bandwidth speed way back when illegal content distribution is suspected. Such throttling, known as traffic shaping, has been a real hot button topic among hard core techies of late given that Comcast (in the U.S.) and other ISPs around the globe have been caught limiting the bandwidth of heavy internet users.
Ironically Glickman may get his wish in having ISPs join the MPAA in fighting movie piracy, though not due to the efforts of his organization. More so because internet providers find it is in their best interest to optimize their network by curtailing bandwidth speeds to non-commercial users generating the most traffic. In techie language. . . that means those using file sharing programs to distribute pirated copies of the latest blockbusters.
Popularity: 22% [?]
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