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Motion Picture Association

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"MPAA" redirects here. For the television show, see My Parents Are Aliens.
Motion Picture Association of America
TypeRatings, anti-piracy
HeadquartersWashington, DC, USA (office of the Chairman and CEO)
Location
  • USA
A. Robert Pisano (interim)
Websitewww.mpaa.org

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), is a United States non-profit business and trade association designed to advance the business interests of movie studios. The MPAA administers the voluntary but dominant MPAA film rating system. The primary MPAA ratings are G (general), PG (parental guidance suggested), PG-13 (parental guidance suggested under the age of 13), R (not suitable for children under 17), and NC-17 (children 17 and under are not admitted).

As part of its campaign to curb copyright infringement, the MPAA fights against sharing copyrighted works via peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. The MPAA's anti-piracy campaign has gained much publicity and criticism.

History

In 1922, the major American movie studios founded the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America,[1] with former U.S. Postmaster General Will H. Hays as its head. The group administered the so-called "Hays code" film censorship system from 1930 to 1968.

In 1945, Hays was succeeded by former U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Eric Johnston. It was during Johnston's tenure that the name of the organization was changed to "The Motion Picture Association of America". Johnston inherited the stringent censorship responsibilities associated with the Hays Code, but added to his mission the promotion of American films, which were gaining in popularity overseas in the post-World War II era. Following Johnston's death in 1963, the MPAA's top post remained unfilled for three years, while studio executives searched for a successor.

Alongside the progress of civil rights, women's rights and labor movements, a new kind of American film was emerging - frank and uninhibited. Amid society's expanding freedoms, the movie industry's restrictive regime of self-censorship became increasingly outdated. In May 1966, Jack Valenti, former Special Assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson, was named MPAA President. That same year, sweeping revisions were made to the Hays Code to reflect changing social mores. In 1968, Valenti founded the voluntary film rating system easing restraints on filmmakers' creative and artistic freedoms, while fulfilling its core purpose of informing parents about the content of films so they can determine which movies are appropriate for their children. More than forty years later, the rating system continues to evolve with a changing society.

In 2004, after serving as MPAA president for 38 years, Valenti retired and was replaced by former Kansas Congressman and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. Glickman led the association during a period of significant industry transformation, retiring from the position in the Spring of 2010. While the advent of the digital era created new opportunities for delivering movies to consumers, it also gave rise to a potential threat to the industry - online movie piracy.[2]

Structure

MPAA members include the "seven big" Hollywood studios[3]:

MGM was an MPAA member until 2005, shortly after Sony Pictures Entertainment's failed attempt to buy that studio. Other, smaller studios and distribution companies that are not members of the MPAA avail themselves of the association's rating and title registration services.

From 1966 to 2004, Jack Valenti was MPAA president and strongly associated with the association because of his long tenure and high public profile. Valenti retired on September 1, 2004. Dan Glickman, a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, now serves as the MPAA chairman and chief executive officer.[4][5] On September 22, 2005, Glickman named A. Robert Pisano as chief operating officer and president.[6] Kori Bernards is the MPAA's corporate communications vice-president and principal spokeswoman.

Anti-piracy efforts

Home recording

In the early 1980s, the Association opposed the videocassette recorder (VCR) on copyright grounds. In a 1982 congressional hearing, Valenti decried the "savagery and the ravages of this machine" and compared its effect on the film industry and the American public to the Boston strangler.[7]

Publicity campaigns

The MPAA has promoted a variety of publicity campaigns designed to increase public awareness about piracy. Some include:

You Wouldn't Steal a Car

"You Wouldn't Steal a Car" was a 2004[8] advertisement by the MPAA appearing before program content on many DVDs. Skipping this segment is not possible with many commercial DVD players unless the machine's bundled software ignores user operation prohibition or a DVD ripper is used.

The voiceover and text of the ad states, "You wouldn’t steal a car. You wouldn’t steal a handbag. You wouldn’t steal a mobile phone. You wouldn’t steal a DVD. Downloading pirated films is stealing. Stealing is against the law. Piracy: it’s a crime."[9][10] Later versions substitute "pirate DVDs" for "downloading films online" is stealing. Parodies of the ad sometimes appear in pirated DVD copies, using a sound-alike version of "No Man Army" by The Prodigy. Parodies in TV shows often involve absurdist takes on the equation of minor crimes to severe ones - such as in TV series The IT Crowd, where the list of crimes is extended to "You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman." and beyond.

The MPAA has instiuted legal actions against a number of peer-to-peer file-sharing sites (or BitTorrent trackers) used to upload and download copyrighted material like movies. Widely publicised examples include Razorback2 and The Pirate Bay.[11]

In February 2006, the MPAA released the following statement:

"Today’s lawsuits are part of MPAA’s international campaign against online piracy which has experienced some significant victories as of late. Last week the server facilitating one of the largest Torrent sites in the Netherlands, Dikkedonder, was shut down and on Monday, Belgian and Swiss authorities shut down Razorback2 -- the number one eDonkey server in the world which facilitated the illegal file swapping by approximately 1.3 million simultaneous users. The MPAA’s strategy focuses on all levels of Internet piracy to cut off the major suppliers of illegal files and at the same time curtail facilitation of illegal file swapping by peer-to-peer networks. Approximately 75 Torrent and eDonkey sites have been shut down in the last year as a result of these efforts."[11]

Razorback2

Main article: Razorback2

On February 21, 2006, the Razorback2 servers located in a Belgian datacenter were confiscated by Belgian police. The site's operator, a Swiss resident, was arrested.

Glickman stated in a press release:

This is a major victory in our fight to cut off the supply of illegal materials being circulated on the Internet via peer-to-peer networks. By shaving the illegal traffic of copyrighted works facilitated by Razorback2, we are depleting other illegal networks of their ability to supply Internet pirates with copyrighted works which is a positive step in our international effort to fight piracy.[12]

The Pirate Bay

Main article: The Pirate Bay raid

Responding to allegations of copyright violations, Swedish police raided The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent tracker based in Sweden, on May 31, 2006. Some 65 police officers participated in the raid, shutting down the site and confiscating its servers, as well as all other servers hosted by Pirate Bay's ISP, PRQ Inet. Three people—Gottfrid Svartholm, Mikael Viborg, and Fredrik Neij—were held by the police for questioning.[13] Three days later, Pirate Bay was fully functional again.

The raid became controversial in Sweden when the Swedish public broadcast network, Sveriges Television, cited unnamed sources claiming that the raid was prompted by political pressure from the United States. The Swedish government allegedly was threatened with WTO trade sanctions unless action was taken against Pirate Bay.[14]

The Swedish government denied these allegations. However, a letter titled "Re: The Pirate Bay" from the MPAA to Swedish State Secretary Dan Eliasson, dated two months before the raid, hinted at trade reprisals. The letter stated, "it is certainly not in Sweden's best interests to earn a reputation as a place where utter lawlessness is tolerated." The letter went on to urge Eliasson to "exercise your influence to urge law enforcement officers in Sweden to take much needed action against The Pirate Bay."

In a MPAA press release, which has since been taken down, dated May 31, 2006, entitled "Swedish Authorities Sink Pirate Bay," Glickman states:

The actions today taken in Sweden serve as a reminder to pirates all over the world that there are no safe harbors for Internet copyright thieves.[15]

In both the 2007 documentary Good Copy Bad Copy and the film Steal This Film II,[16] Glickman spoke about the 2006 raid on The Pirate Bay and conceded that piracy will never be stopped. He emphasized, however, that the MPAA will try to make it as difficult and tedious as possible.[17]

Industry attitude

Main article: Pirated movie release types

Movie piracy was originally considered impossible by the major studios. When dial-up was common in the early and mid 1990s, movies distributed on the Internet generally had a small picture size because of compression software that also diminished video quality. At that time, the largest piracy threat was software.

However, concurrent to the increase of broadband internet connections, beginning around 1998, widespread distribution of higher-quality movies began appearing. As DeCSS increased in popularity, ISO images copied directly from the original DVDs were slowly becoming a feasible distribution method. Today, movie sharing has become common and thus a major concern to movie studios and their representative organizations. As a result, the MPAA frequently produces public awareness movie trailers to discourage the copying of material without permission. The film industry has moved more slowly toward online distribution compared to the music industry, launching Amazon Unbox in 2006.

Controversies and criticisms

Disputed figures

On January 22, 2008, the MPAA admitted to making an error in its claims about piracy occurring at colleges.[18] These revelations came at a time when the MPAA was lobbying for a bill that would compel universities to crack down on piracy.[19]

Rating system

Main article: Motion Picture Association of America film rating system

Fight against online piracy

The rise of the Internet has further emphasized the MPAA’s role in controlling content, not withstanding that some users may access content they otherwise could not, such as NC-17 movies not shown in theaters. Although the MPAA has won several victories, like with Razorback2 and through a series of successful lawsuits against public torrent websites, online piracy is still growing steadily with more and more participants.

Arguably, the effect MPAA raids have had on overall online pirating traffic is limited. For example, the day Razorback2 (a major server on the Edonkey2000 network) was shut down, Edonkey2000 network traffic remained constant.[20] The MPAA, however, claims to have had a very successful history shutting down networks of pirated material and torrent sites and alleges that during 2006, for example, 75 were shut down.[21]

See also: Trade group efforts against file sharing

In 2007, English software developer Patrick Robin alleged that the MPAA illegally used his blogging platform, Forest Blog, which is distributed without cost under a linkware license, whereby users must link back to his site. To remove these links, one must secure a license, but Patrick Robin claimed the MPAA removed them without purchasing a license. The MPAA responded that it was only testing the blogging platform and that the blog was "never advertised to the public in any way."[citation needed]

On November 23, 2007, Matthew Garret notified the MPAA that it was in violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL) for distributing a software toolkit, based on the Xubuntu operating system and designed to help universities detect instances of potentially illegal file-sharing on school networks. Garret alleged that the MPAA violated the GPL by distributing a derived work without making source code available. On December 1, 2007, Garrett notified the Internet service provider for the MPAA that, in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, he was requesting them to disable the offending distribution web site. The MPAA subsequently changed its site so the toolkit was no longer offered for distribution.[22]

Monopoly

Because MPAA members are the motion picture industry's most powerful studios, in turn owned by some of the world's largest media corporations, critics of the association often raise allegations of monopoly.[citation needed] They also cite the MPAA's support for closed standards that hinder competition. Other critics, like filmmaker Kirby Dick, have suggested that films released by major studios (members of the MPAA) are given more deference in terms of ratings than films released by independents.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Production Code of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc.—1930–1934". enotes.com. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
  2. ^ "Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America". Hutchinson. Retrieved 2009-05-21. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ^ "FAQ," MPAA webpage
  4. ^ Washington Post, Glickman Succeeds Valenti At MPAA
  5. ^ Glickman profile, MPAA website
  6. ^ MPAA press release, September 22, 2005
  7. ^ Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice of the Committee of the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session on H.R. 4783, H.R. 4794 H.R. 4808, H.R. 5250, H.R. 5488, and H.R. 5705, Serial No 97, Part I, Home Recording of Copyrighted Works, April 12, 1982. US Government Printing Office. "We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry that is able to retrieve a surplus balance of trade and whose total future depends on its protection from the savagery and the ravages of this machine." Later in the testimony, he stated, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." [1]
  8. ^ "Launch of Anti-Piracy Movie Trailer," Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) website
  9. ^ "Can Sampling Help Curb Piracy?" Knowledge@Emory website
  10. ^ "'You Wouldn't Steal a Car': Intellectual Property and the Language of Theft," Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. website
  11. ^ a b MPAA press release, February 21, 1006
  12. ^ MPAA press release, February 21, 2006
  13. ^ Mikael Viborg's personal blog entry, dated June 1, 2006
  14. ^ "USA-hot bakom fildelningsrazzia," June 20, 2006, Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish)
  15. ^ MPAA press release, May 31, 2006
  16. ^ Steal This Film II promotional website
  17. ^ "Good Copy Bad Copy" website
  18. ^ "MPAA admits mistake on downloading study". arstechnica.com. 2008-01-23. Retrieved 2010-09-08.
  19. ^ "2008 shaping up to be "Year of Filters" at colleges, ISPs". arstechnica.com. 2008-01-22. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
  20. ^ "Movie piracy more popular than ever". Computing.co.uk. 2007-01-29. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
  21. ^ "Studios Move to Thwart Illegal File Sharing on Major Pirate Networks: MPAA Companies Take Action Against Torrent, eDonkey and Newsgroup Sites Used by Millions" (PDF). MPAA press release. 2006-02-23.
  22. ^ Paul, Ryan (2007-12-04). "MPAA's University Toolkit hit with DMCA takedown notice after GPL violation". ars technica. arstechnica, LLC. Retrieved 2007-12-07.
  23. ^ Kirby Dick (2006-01-25). This Film Is Not Yet Rated (Film).
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