MPAA finances: The Naked Truth
p2pnet view P2P | MPAA:- On Monday p2pnet revealed the incredible financial mess Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA was wallowing in during the latter part of its sue ‘em all campaign.
Its brother organisation, and one with whom it frequently collaborates in anti-P2P ‘operations’ and ‘investigations’, is Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America).
Mission? To ‘Protect and Promote the Motion Picture Industry’.
Thanks to the recent interesting departure of erstwhile boss Dan ‘The Joker’ Glickman (right), Hollywood’s anti-pirate ship is at the moment captainless; and he’s just started a considerably less than glamourous new new job, his second since he hit the road not running. He’s now a “senior fellow in residence” at the Bipartisan Policy Center founded by former senators Bob Dole of Kansas, Glickman’s home town, Howard Baker and Tom Daschle.
Before that, for several weeks he ran Refugees International. Announcing his appointment, “Mr. Glickman brings to RI a long history of public service, fighting hunger and helping underserved people in the U.S. and around the world,” said the organisation.
It didn’t say anything about his departure, or from where it got its information about Glickman’s antecedence as a “hunger fighter” helping “underserved people in the U.S. and around the world”.
Be that as it may, in 2008 Mitch ‘The Don’ Bainwol, his opposite number in the RIAA, pulled down $2,032,072 after overseeing the biggest screw-up in corporate music history.
However, Glickman’s take the same year was a paltry $1,363,806.
But who knows? Maybe he was earning as much as The Don before he was kicked — sorry, before he resigned from the MPAA?
Anyway, here’s some of what it spent and where it went looking after Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures interests between 2006 and 2008.
Critical threat to the movie business
The MPAA was founded in 1950 and its most famous son is/was the late Jack ‘Boston Strangler’ Valenti who, like Glickman, was a well-known humanitarian, an award being established in his name.
In the 80s he told congress the videocassette recorder was a critical threat to the movie business because tapes could be made of films. “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone,” he declared.
In 2006 Valenti received $1,447,792, although he was no longer running the MPAA, having been replaced by Glickman.
In 2006 the MPAA lashed out $9,762,369 on worldwide ‘anti-piracy’ funding, and a further $5,471,182 on ‘investigations’.
That year Glickman received $1,312,800 for his efforts.
In 2007 Valenti was still being paid handsomely, stashing $1,440,286 in his bank account. But at $9,347,797, worldwide piracy funding was marginally down, as was spending on investigations — $4,187,663.
Glickman wound up with a total of $1,363,806.
Could it be Valenti was getting more money than Glickman because he was ‘mentoring’ the latter and acting in an ex-officio capacity up until he died in May of that year?
Be that as it may, Valenti may have passed on to the Silver Screen in the Sky, but his estate was (and may still be) rakingit in, receiving $1,361,938.
Interestingly for the first time the MPAA named the legal firms handling its work.
Among them was Jenner & Block (beloved of the Obama administration and the RIAA) to the tune of $2,486,875.
J&B also managed to winkle $7,077,984 out of the RIAA.
The MPAA’s 2008 form also includes a list of related tax-exempt organisation, including several ‘Canadian’ concerns, to wit the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors’ Association and the Copyright Collective of Canada.
For your further interest, below them are several more ‘MPAAs’.
- Click here for MPAA 990 2007
- Click here for MPAA 990 2008
- Click here for MPAA 990 2008
Stay tuned.
… and identi.ca
p2pnet – RIAA boss Bainwol paid $2 million in 2008, July 12, 2010
new new job – Ex-MPAA boss Glickman’s new new job, June 23, 2010
well-known humanitarian – Late MPAA boss Valenti a ‘humanitarian’, April 8, 2009
beloved – Jenner & Block – running the DoJ?, April 26, 2010
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July 16th, 2010 at 7:38 am
lol mpaa didn’t even bother to check the addresses for the tax-exmpt. org.s:
there does not exist a st. claire av in toronto