STUDIOS SAY CLEAR COPYRIGHT RULES ARE NEEDED FOR INTERNET
Some Hollywood studios will begin streaming movies over Internet within “in the next few months” and more will follow soon after, even though technological and legal details of protecting movies from copying aren’t final, said MPAA Pres. Jack Valenti. Studios haven’t even determined whether new legislation is needed to protect copyrights on Internet, Valenti told Media Institute in Washington Wed.
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There still are many details to be worked out, he said, but final environment must provide adequate protection for owners of intellectual property (IP). Valenti said there was “great collision” between IP owners, such as studios, and “those who believe everything on the Internet ought to be openly and speciously available to everyone.” He said Congress must understand that IP industries were largest single contributor to U.S. balance of trade, and film industry was based on “very fragile economics.” Valenti also said concept of protecting private property, such as IP, was “embedded in the very capillaries of the Constitution.”
IP industries are actively looking to ways to make their content available -- at fair price -- because it’s good business, Valenti said. Studios see Internet as “one of the great new delivery systems” for their content, analogous to cable or VCRs, he said: “We are not Luddites trying to hold back new technologies.”
Valenti said question is how to use technology such as watermarks or encryption to protect content from unauthorized use once it gets on Internet: “We are talking to the smartest people about how to do that.” Some legislation may be needed to “assure that this new technology finds its roots,” such as assuring that consumer electronics actually will read watermarks or encryption, Valenti said, but he said he wasn’t sure whether it was needed because Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was “a good cop on the beat.”
Valenti said he was “greatly optimistic” courts would rule against Internet file sharing in Napster appeal: “I have to be because the alternative is so completely unacceptable… I cannot see under the most unfathomable conditions how they wouldn’t protect copyright.” In response to questions, Valenti also said copyright fair use was “well and alive” in DMCA, and new technologies probably would allow variable number of copies to be made, with everyone probably able to make at least one copy of Internet content.