First he said you were not allowed to see R-rated films without your parents. Now Jack Valenti wants you to delete every illegally-downloaded movie file on your hard drive.
Valenti, president and chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, called upon universities to develop a code of conduct for their Internet-using students and argued for a moral imperative to stop file-swapping during the third annual Meredith and Kip Frey Lecture in Intellectual Property at the School of Law Monday.
Such a code would help prevent the unauthorized downloading of almost half a million files on peer-to-peer file-sharing sites, Valenti told an audience of more than 150 people. College students with high-bandwidth Internet connections in their dorm rooms comprise the biggest chunk of those downloads, he said, and their actions are a clear-cut case of intellectual property theft.
"The newspaper is full of sordid stories of the unbounded avarice of a lot of corporate executives," Valenti said. "These executives knew they were cheating and stealing from their employees and stockholders.... [File-downloaders] are doing the same thing."
One of the most powerful people in Hollywood since he took the reigns of the MPAA in 1966, Valenti argued Monday that illegal downloading runs contrary to such moral American tenants as duty, service, honor and integrity.
"Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the students in this room would never go into a Blockbuster store and, with a furtive glance, put a DVD in their coat and leave," he said. "It's stealing, it's shoplifting, it's the Winona Ryder thing. If they get caught, they're in big-ass trouble. Why is digital shoplifting such a low-risk enterprise?"
Valenti noted that at the current level of 17 million Internet users with a broadband connection, the industry could survive. But with projections of 40 to 50 million broadband users in the next few years, he said file-downloading could cripple Hollywood.
He added that MPAA officials are currently meeting with top university administrators to discuss the creation of a possible student code of conduct in regard to downloading. Earlier this month, Duke administrators warned students of the dangers of using peer-to-peer programs like KaZaA, noting that such programs gobble up campus bandwidth and expose students to potential copyright-infringement laws.
Law students in attendance engaged in a lively debate with Valenti following his lecture, posing pointed questions and attempting to find possible loopholes in the illegality of copying digital material. Valenti remained stalwart in opposition to file-downloading.
"He says a lot of funny things, but he is pretty obnoxious and sort of a one-note Johnny," said second-year law student Kimberly Klimczuk after the event. "When someone brings up a legitimate concern, he goes off on a rant as to why it is stealing."
But most of those in attendance agreed the lecture was worthwhile.
"He was a provocative speaker, and in many ways it's refreshing to hear an industry voice. In academia, you tend to hear the same thing over and over again," said third-year law student Jim White. "I don't agree with him, but it was still refreshing."
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