Valenti Retiring, Or Will He Keep Tilting At Hollywood's Windmills?
from the you-never-know... dept
While the NY Post is reporting that Jack Valenti is about to step down from running the MPAA, the NY Times has a huge profile of Valenti suggesting he may stick around for a while longer. While he claims he wants to go out "at the top of [his] game" some would say he's rapidly pushing new lows - such as the recent mess over DVD screeners and his new plan to brainwash school children. Of course, others may suggest he's been at the bottom of his game for at least the past twenty years, since his infamous "Boston strangler" quote saying that the VCR would destroy the movie industry. The home video market now represents a huge portion of Hollywood's revenue, and is often credited with "saving" Hollywood. To some, it's been quite amazing that Valenti has been able to keep his job through all of this. The NY Post story suggests that Valenti will be replaced by current congressman Billy Tauzin, meaning that there will be little change in how the MPAA views things. They won't be looking for ways to actually embrace new technologies to expand their business, but will, instead, fight on against the wrong things, wasting money the entire way. The movie industry needs to realize that going to the movies is a social experience, and they should work on making that aspect more enjoyable, rather than worrying about a few folks downloading movies. Update: Keven Werbach thinks Tauzin would be a good replacement for two reasons. One, it gets him away from the House Commerce Committee where he's been a big supporter of established telecom companies, and because he simply wouldn't be anywhere near as effective as Valenti.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Typo?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]