JACK BE NIMBLE, BUT HE DON'T BE SO QUICK
By Carrington Vanston - September 3, 2004
http://www.carringtonvanston.net/archives/jackvalenti

Engadget recently interviewed Jack "up against the wall, punk" Valenti, the soon-to-be-former head of the Motion Picture Association of America and best known to many of you as the name on top of the subpoena your grandmother received last week.

In the [interview][1], Jack "hall monitor of the year, 1969" Valenti had this to say about technology:

[1]: http://www.engadget.com/2004/08/30/the-engadget-interview-jack-valenti/

> I have said, technology is what causes the problem,
> and technology will be the salvation of the problem.
> I really do believe we can stuff enough algorithms
> in a movie that only the dedicated hackers can spend
> the time and effort to try to plumb through those 1,000
> algorithms to try to find a way to beat it. In time,
> we'll be able to do this, because I have great faith
> in the technological genius that's out there.
> -- Jack "just doesn't get it" Valenti

Oh really?

First, let's say the MPAA will actually someday be able to "stuff enough algorithms," to use a technical term, into a movie such that only a dedicated hacker could beat it. Fine.

But even then, what Jack "smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast" Valenti seems to not know (or more likely not want to know, or even more likely not want to admit) is that the vast (vast, VAST) majority of people who acquire digital material sans legal, as the French don't say, do not hack anything. And they don't need to hack anything because somebody else, let's call him Mr. One In Ten Thousand, does the hacking for them and uploads the result to the so-called Darknet free for the taking. DRM can't stop anybody until it can stop everybody.

Jack "didn't he write Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?" Valenti can have all the faith he wants in "the technological genius that's out there," but it's exactly that genius that will defeat every possible DRM system that can ever be conceived. Somebody somewhere will always eventually be able to break any system and release copies of the film. And somebody somewhere will always be able to get his hands on a copy of the original pre-locked material and release copies of the film. And somebody somewhere will always be able to make a copy with a MiniDV camera from the projection booth or one of those handy seats with a headphone jack for nice clean sound, and release ... well, you get the picture.

And you will indeed get the picture. For free, if you want it. And there's nothing the MPAA will ever be able to do about it. Welcome to a little something we call A NEW BUSINESS MODEL. Get used to it.

The most annoying part, though, is the MPAA's constant lie (but please note, before you issue me a cease and desist order, that by "lie" I mean "really big fucking lie so there") that digital rights management controls aren't aimed at Joe Public. In point of fact, it's Mr. J. Public himself who is the only one inconvenienced by such things.

Hackers dance around DRM with ease, and always will. People who want to take copyrighted material without paying, which they might do for any of a huge range of reasons, do so with an ease that's only going to get easier as high speed net access becomes higher speed net access and then eventually even higher speed than that, oh my gosh that's fast net access (which I believe is coming some time around 3:14 PM this Thursday).

It's the casual user, and ONLY the casual user, who is in any real way affected by (and therefore, it is reasonable to assume, targeted by) digital rights management.

And don't even get me started on those oh so annoying, can't-be-fast-forwarded FBI Warnings that take over my television Outer Limits style every time I watch a DVD. Those alone are enough to make me want to pirate movies just so I can watch them without (a) being punished for something I didn't do, and (b) being accosted by the constant cries of poverty by a punk ass multibillion dollar movie industry.

In fact, the only thing that's ever made me want to pirate movies more than that annoying must-sit-through-it-again FBI Warning was the pre-show PSA by stunt man Manny "don't call me Jack" Perry. The gall of running that ad before cinema audiences--who are by definition people who have just paid for a movie, and therefore the one group that we can be absolutely certain isn't the ad's supposed target audience--was not just satirical but insulting. I'm sure Manny's IMDB listing page took a digital pounding as people across the continent compiled their own to-download lists.

But just as the ONLY audience for Manny's "I blew myself up for you, please don't begrudge Mr. Affleck his $40,000,000.00 paycheck for Paycheck" commercial is the movie-paying public, it's the casual user who is the ONLY one inconvenienced by technological inhibitors that stop clearly reasonable things like making backups of the movies we buy.

Of course, Jack "take it in the ear for a beer" Valenti disagrees:

> When you go to your department store and you buy
> 10 Cognac glasses and two weeks later you break
> two of them, the store doesn't give you two backup
> copies. Where did this backup copy thing come from?
> A digital thing lasts forever.
> --Jack "don't cry for me Arrr-gentina" Valenti

A digital thing lasts forever? Tell that to my piles of disintegrating Apple II floppies. Tell that to my scratched copy of Loverboy's greatest hits (the kid is not so hot tonight anymore, believe you me). Tell that to my copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in Voyager Expanded Books (AKA Hypercard) format.

Tell that to every media format that's been ousted by a new, slightly improved one that buried past formats under an avalanche of pressure from companies with a vested interest in re-selling us the same things over and over.

I own (yes, OWN) the CD Pieces Of Eight by Styx. Don't judge my musical taste, I'm just trying to make a point here. At one time I owned it on cassette, and before that I owned it on LP (twice!). A truly great album, but I'm going "on record" (ha, I'm funny) now to say I will never, ever, under any circumstances, pay for it again. Four times is all you get--in fact, it's three more than you should get--and I now consider it my god damned right to own a copy of that music in any freakin' format I want from now on. I'll take the MP3s, and the AACs, and the direct-to-synapse brain storage when it comes around. I'll make nine hundred copies and wallpaper my bedroom with it if I want.

And the same goes for the movies I've bought. Let's repeat that important word, shall we: bought. I can doodle in the books I've bought. I can heat up the CDs I've bought and turn them into ash trays. I can take the DVD I own of Fast Times At Ridgemont High, freeze-frame it on the pool scene, and leave it there for the weekend if I want. (That last one's not so much part of my argument as a note to self.)

But to answer the question posed by Jack "I'd charge you to breathe if I could get away with it" Valenti, this "backup copy thing" came from the first time somebody realized the essential difference between selling me hard goods like a glass and selling me AN ALMOST-NO-COST INSTANT COPY of a thing that I can duplicate with no additional cost or effort by you.

When you sell me a glass, you've sold me actual atoms--you lose what I gain. But when the day comes that you can make instant magical copies of glasses such that you still have all your glasses after you sell me one, and yet I agree to pay you for a copy of that glass to reward and encourage your glassblowing efforts--well, Jack "go blow glass" Valenti, that's the day I'll expect to be able to make a freakin' backup of my glasses.

And on that day, Jack "be nimrod" Valenti, if you tell me I can't then I'll happily make you an instant magical copy of my finger for you to go instantly and magically rotate on.

Sit and spin, Jack "ass" Valenti. Sit and spin.

Carrington Vanston
carrington@carringtonvanston.net

[This article is released to the public domain.]