Valenti Angry With Tarantino

Found on Techdirt on Monday, 17 May 2004
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How about a celebrity boxing match between Quentin Tarantino and Jack Valenti? Last week Tarantino spoke at an "anti-piracy" conference and made the case that movie piracy isn't so bad in many cases. However, by not sticking to the script, Tarantino has apparently upset MPAA head Jack Valenti. It's a little unclear what was said, but from the article linked here, it sounds like Valenti was threatening Tarantino. He tells him that it's time to "get on-board" with the industry's anti-piracy efforts. However, there doesn't appear to be an "or else," which certainly makes it sound like quite the idle threat. However, he's also threatening file sharers, and is basically admitting that the MPAA is likely to follow in the RIAA's footsteps and start directly suing end users. Valenti warns: "Suppose you can [download] a movie in five minutes, piracy will explode like a pandemic." Mr. Valenti's track record in such predictions isn't so hot. After all, he's the guy who predicted the VCR would kill the movie industry just before it (oh, that's right) saved the industry.

For being so demanding and convinced of what he says, Valenti doesn't know much about the facts. He was totally unaware of the fact that there is no licensed DVD player for Linux users (which he thought to be a neglectable group of geeks). Why not let artists, who have the right to make decisions about their work, decide freely?