Major Hollywood ‘anti-piracy’ shake up
p2pnet news view | P2P | Movies:- “Hollywood fears that the pirating of movies will become as common as the illicit sharing of music files.”
Clearly, the auld grey heads who run Time-Warner, Fox, Disney, Columbia, Paramount and MGM haven’t been near the P2P networks, lately. There, the sharing of movies continues to be prolific, thanks to a significant extent to Hollywood insiders who supply screeners, work prints, preview releases and other ‘product’ for online consumption.
On top of that, the many millions of DVDs routinely pumped out for retail sale serve as templates for organised criminal counterfeiters and duplicators who sell the results on underground and black markets, as well as the street corners and flea markets of the world.
The statement in the intro comes from CNET News which says Hollywood has been forced to rethink its strategy with respect to ‘illegal’ file sharing, firing some of its most senior executives in the process.
It also seems Hollywood will be following the lead of the major record labels who’ve mounted a massive, mega-million-dollar international campaign to ‘persuade’ governments to act as enforcement agencies, and local ISPs as copyright cops with their own customers as targets.
And the term ‘antipiracy’ is to be abandoned in favour of the less emotive phrase ‘content protection,’ says the story.
The six major studios are, “apparently dissatisfied with the way their trade group has waged war on illegal file sharing,” it states, going on at least “three leaders of its antipiracy operations have been fired”.
Among them was MPAA general counsel Greg Goeckner, who must be gone by the end of the year. The others are the director of worldwide antipiracy operations, and th deputy director of Internet antipiracy. Goeckner will remain with the MPAA until the end of the year.
Additional MPAA staffers received a pink slips as part of a “dramatic restructuring of the piracy-fighting operations, says the story, saying Daniel Mandil, an MPAA senior executive vice president, is now general counsel and chief of content protection. He’ll oversee the enforcement unit’s combined legal and antipiracy efforts.
“The reshuffling at the highest levels of the MPAA’s antipiracy efforts will undoubtedly be seen as a black eye for MPAA CEO Dan Glickman,” says the story, continuing:
“Hollywood fears that the pirating of movies will become as common as the illicit sharing of music files. Studio insiders say they know that the answer isn’t lawsuits but the hope is that Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner, and other bandwidth providers will help them thwart file sharing at the network level. So far, though, the music and film industries have failed to get the major ISPs very involved.”
What of Dan ‘The Joker’ Glickman, the man who took over from deceased MPAA boss Jack Valenti?
It seems he too is on his way out.
But this isn’t news.
As p2pnet pointed out the back in April, quoting Nikki Finke in Deadline Hollywood, studio bosses were unhappy with Glickman, their discontent centering, on the fact he`s a bad and boring speaker who has not repped the movie business well in Washington.
Now “whispers” say Glickman, ” hasn’t been very effective since taking over at the MPAA in 2004,” says CNet.
He recently, “met with several of the MPAA member company studio executives, as he often does,” it has an MPAA spokeswoman the saying, adding.
“During those meetings he reconfirmed his plans to continue in his role as chairman and CEO through the remainder of his contract. They welcomed that commitment and expressed their continued confidence in him.”
Stay tuned.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
CNET News – MPAA: Antipiracy is now ‘content protection’, October 16, 2009
p2pnet – MPAA boss Dan Glickman: on his way out, April 3, 2009
Deadline Hollywood Studios Plan To Replace MPAA`s Glickman, March 27, 2009
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October 19th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Here’s my view! In 1968 two movies at the local house were 15 cents. Not for one, but for both. A bag of pop corn was a nickle and candies were mostly a penny a piece. The theater made a profit and everyone wore a corridial smile. Some four decades later ONE movie is over eight dollars in most cases. That bag og pop corn is six to seven dollars and the candies are a minimum of three dollars. that means that the cost of seeing a movie in it’s natural place, as we grew up being taught, Has gone up some 5000% in just over two generations. Or 125% per year since 1968. Now the greedy, money grubbing, wanna be controling liberal tight sphynksterd communists wonder why we, their CUSTONERS are seeking other bright financial solutions or venues! I’m 49 years old and will die before I submit to communisim. Go file sharing go!!!!!!!!!!! IT IS OUR CHOICE FOLKS. NOT THEIRS!!!!!!!
October 19th, 2009 at 11:55 am
There’s been a lot of that going around. It seems that “anti-piracy” is no longer the ticket to career advancement it appeared to be just a few years ago.
Earlier this year the “preeminent” anti-piracy experts, Randy Saaf and Octavio Herrera, were fired from MediaDefender in a bankruptcy restructuring.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
It’s so pleasing to the eyes to read about MPAA staffers getting the pink slips. That’s for all the bullshit you try to throw at us, you goddamn MPAA!
To back up the first comment: Go file sharing, go!