wildyams

I just came across this and wanted to share it here. It is Jack Valenti's testimony at the 1982 House hearing on copyrighted works, and it is a hilarious read. For those who don't know, Jack Valenti is the head of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), and in this testimony is he basically howling that the VCR is going to be the death of the film industry, and is there to have Congress vote to reign in the "avalance" of VCR sales because he claims it would spell the end of the film industry. As anyone can tell you, home video sales are a HUGE revenue source for the film industry and the MPAA, and now DVD sales routinely beat out box office sales, meaning that the studios usually make more money on home video sales than they do from the movies being in theaters. Anyway, here were a couple of my favorite quotes from Valenti's assinine testimony back in 1982:

"(N)ow we are facing a very new and a very troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the video cassette recorder and its necessary companion called the blank tape. And it is like a great tidal wave just off the shore. This video cassette recorder and the blank tape threaten profoundly the life-sustaining protection, I guess you would call it, on which copyright owners depend, on which film people depend, on which television people depend and it is called copyright."

In retrospect he couldn't have been more incorrect, could he? Check out how he here makes his plea like he is Robin Hood, fighting for the poor:

"By 1990, the Japanese estimate that 30 to 35 million U.S. homes will be equipped with VCR's. VCR owners will buy about 225 million or 300 million blank tapes. But, and here is an explosive political fact, Mr. Chairman, two-thirds of U.S. households will not own VCR's, Mr. Chairman. One-third of VCR households will not be on cable or won't have access to cable. Now, if there is a scarcity of film and television entertainment, it won't be the well-groomed and the well-heeled that will suffer. It is going to be, as always it is, Mr. Chairman, the less-affluent, the disadvantaged people pressed against the wall, out of work, who can't afford these expensive machines, and free television to the sick and the old and the poor will remain the primary source of home entertainment.

Now, when a producer takes in less from these other markets, he is going to invest less. When your profit potential shrinks, you pull back. You produce less and you stay as long as you can in markets where you think you can make some money without having a VCR lay waste to your profit.

The loser will be your public because they don't have these expensive machines. And that is what I am saying, sir. The public is the loser when creative property is taken and here is the reason why. The investment of hundreds of millions of dollars each year to produce quality programs to theaters and television will surely decline. "

It turns out he had that backwards: the investment of hundreds of million dollars each year didn't decline (in fact is has continually increased, due in large part to the new revenue stream the home video market created), but the number of "quality programs to theaters and television" surely declined. Also, gotta love his foresight in not seeing that VCRs would come down in price; although considering the rate at which movie ticket prices have gone up over the years, I guess it's not surprising he didn't make this assumption.

Here is my personal favorite (this line has become somewhat famous, as you can imagine):

"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."

:lol

Unfortunately what is not so funny is that Valenti and these same idiots are still trying today to get Congress to ban new technologies which they feel will be the death of the entertainment industry. For a glimpse of what kind of bullshit we can expect in about a year from organizations like the MPAA and their lobbyists in Washington, check out this boingboing entry on digital recording restrictions in Japan.