Valenti avoids embarrassing defeat
p2pnet.net News:- The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and indie film makers say they’ve settled the screener ban case.
Last year, outgoing MPAA boss Jack Valenti did his best to ban screeners, claiming they ended up on p2p file sharing networks, costing the industry millions of dollars.
Valenti raised the now hoary “online file sharing causes untold hardship to support workers, and costs thousands of jobs” theme, picked up by the Mitch Bainwol and his truth mechanics at the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
Indie movie makers won a preliminary injunction last December allowing the distribution of screeners by the studios and their specialty divisions.
Finally, “The two sides have settled the matter out of court preventing the case from proceeding to trial and avoiding what very well could have been an embarrassing public defeat of the MPAA and its member studios,” says iindieWIRE’s Eugene Hernandez here.
They’ve agreed not to discuss the terms of the deal and, “I can’t comment on what the settlement says,” Levy-Hinte, one of the many plaintiffs, told indieWIRE on Monday.
But he added, “I think [the MPAA] have learned their lesson – this is not a dead issue to us, we will continue to be vigilant to guarantee that independent films are distributed, marketed and advertised for awards in the most vigorous way possible.”
The “threat of piracy is palpable, it is real, and we must move together to protect our industry – if not for the hundreds of thousands of men and women whose livelihoods depend on the business, then for the millions around the world who delight in our creative labors,” Valenti is quoted as saying.
The MPAA and independents will meet on April 12 to talk about piracy issues, adds Hernandez.
