[As always, I will provide the MPAA with a chance to reply. Also I'm still going through the backlog of Politech messages from the last five days, including some more on Noah Shachtman's Los Alamos trip. I've been delayed a bit since I was out of town for a few days... did a road trip to a concert in Greensboro, NC on Saturday. --Declan] --- Subject: i'm alright jack - a look at mpaa's fitness to sell morality Date: tue, 4 mar 2003 20:38:45 -0800 From: "clinton d. fein" <clinton.feinat_private> To: <declanat_private> Hey Declan: Below is an excerpt from the latest Annoy.com editorial about Jack Valenti and the MPAA's audacity in appealing to moral values to protect its right to sneak government protections into terrorism legislation. Politech readers may be interested, although there's nothing much about Valenti that hasn't been said by Politech members before. Perhaps just the imagery! I'm Alright Jack Annoy.com March 5, 2003 http://www.annoy.com/editorials/doc.html?DocumentID=100465 [excerpt] Lobbying organizations, such as the MPAA and RIAA, which used the fear and uncertainty from terrorist attacks to sneak in legislation tying the profits of the movie and recording industries to an egregious abridgement of civil liberties deserve nothing but derision. For an aged representative of that contingent to stand up and talk about moral compacts, and disdainfully dismiss technologies that, like it or not, have revolutionized communications globally and, like it or not, represent real, functional file swapping technologies - not "so-called" ones -- is beyond contempt. Jack Valenti's very presence and theologically tinged, highfalutin approach seems to resonate as successfully with the majority of those using this technology as a nude Hilary Rosen pin-up in a RIAA Swimsuit Edition might. "They know they can find themselves in big-ass trouble if they're caught," exclaims Valenti, expounding why would-be-leaders don't steal movies from Blockbuster, but have no problem downloading media. After all, what self respecting "thief" or "pirate" -- as Valenti terms every evil file-swapper regardless of whether they're infringing copyrights -- hasn't downloaded mega hits like songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's "On Broadway" or bootlegs of "Walk Like an Egyptian"? [/excerpt] _____________________________________ Clinton Fein Editor & Publisher Annoy.com 555 Florida Street, Suite 407 San Francisco, CA 94110 Phone: 415-552-7655 Fax: 415-552-7656 http://annoy.com _____________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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