November 21, 2024

Testimony of Jack Valenti

Testimony of Jack Valenti
Motion Picture Association of America
Before the Senate Commerce Committee
April 1, 2004

Mister Chairman,

Last year I appeared before this committee to urge your support for the broadcast flag, a harmless technical standard necessary to stem the gruesome tide of piracy that is sapping the very lifeblood of America’s most important industry. It is with shock and sadness – and deep concern for the fate of our great democracy – that I must reveal to you today an even more disturbing threat to our way of life.

Recently, Israeli scientists demonstrated a new form of wireless networking, a so-called pigeon-to-pigeon, or “P2P”, technology based on ultra-high-density memory cards transported by carrier pigeons. The so-called scientists, with utter disregard for all standards of content protection and human decency, proved that their technology offers twice as much bandwidth to the home as existing broadband solutions such as DSL, allowing pirates to download twice as many movies.

Let me be blunt, Mister Chairman. This technology is a vehicle for pornography. Nothing prevents its use to transport the most vile and hateful filth. Indeed – and I hesitate to say this in an open hearing room, but you must know the truth – the carriers themselves have been known to engage in acts of procreation.

Even today, deployment of this destructive technology proceeds. A technical standard for its use, known as RFC 1149, has already been issued, and P2P carriers have begun assembling in parks throughout our great nation – the very same parks frequented by drug dealers.

We cannot – we must not – allow this to stand. Faced with the threat of DSL, our nation rose to the occasion by adopting the broadcast flag. We must rise again, to defy this newest and greatest threat to our liberty, by instituting a program of Direct Reproductive Management, or “DRM,” requiring mandatory contraception for every pigeon in America.

Our experts assure us, as they did with the broadcast flag, that this plan is simple, inexpensive, and risk-free. This initiative is of utmost importance to the MPAA. Therefore, it should be implemented by the U.S. Department of Justice, so as not to impede our industry’s work on the nation’s behalf.

Mister Chairman, I cannot overstate the importance of this issue. Our industry, our nation, indeed our civilization itself, depends on your action.

Paris Hilton: Auteur

Some day a great book will be written, dissecting the current copyright mania. And the page-three example, showing just how ridiculous things got, will be this: a legal dispute over whether Paris Hilton can claim authorship of the infamous video.

[Link credit: James Grimmelmann at LawMeme.]

Can Ownership Be Owned?

Julian Dibbell, at TerraNova, points out an issued U.S. Patent that seems to cover digital property systems of the type used by many multiplayer online games:

How naive must one be, in this day and age, to spend months debating the question of virtual property without once wondering whether the question itself (or at any rate the phenomenon underlying it) wasn’t already somebody’s intellectual property?

Speaking only for myself, I confess the thought never crossed my mind. Not until last week, that is, when I received a friendly email from veteran game designer Ron Martinez, who alerted me to U.S. patent 6,119,229, “Virtual Property System,” filed April 1997, granted September 2000, and jointly held by Martinez, Greg Guerin, and the famous cryptographer Bruce Schneier.

As if it weren’t freaky enough that someone could own the concept of digital property, check this out: the patent arguably covers the U.S. Patent system itself, as administered by the PTO, at least with respect to patents on network technology.

Don’t believe me? Let’s read the text of Claim 1 of the patent against the U.S. Patent system. I’ll intersperse the language of the claim (in ordinary typeface) with explanations of where each element can be found in the patent system (in italics). Ready? Here goes.

What is claimed is:

1. A digital object ownership system [the U.S. patent system], comprising:

a plurality of user terminals, each of said user terminals being accessible by at least one individual user [PCs on the Internet];

at least one central computer system, said central computer system being capable of communicating with each of said user terminals [the Patent Office’s servers];

a plurality of digital objects [U.S. patents], each of said digital objects having a unique object identification code [the patent number], each of said digital objects being assigned to an owner [patents have owners], said digital objects being persistent such that each of said digital objects is accessible by a particular user both when said user’s terminal is in communications with said central computer system and also when said terminal is not in communication with said central computer system [patents still exist even when users aren’t reading them on the Net], said object having utility [the ability to bring an infringement suit] in connection with communication over a network [assuming the patent covers subject matter connected to communication over a network], said utility requiring the presence of the object identification code and proof of ownership [infringement suit requires the use of the patent number and a proof of ownership of the patent];

wherein said objects are transferable among users [patent ownership can be transferred]; and

wherein an object that is transferred is assigned to the new owner [when transferred, patent belongs to the new owner].

Yikes! Perhaps the patent system itself is prior art that would invalidate this claim, or at least narrow its scope. This is too much to contemplate on a Friday afternoon.

Panel on Copyright and Free Speech

Lawrence Solum reports on a panel discussion at the American Association of Law Schools conference. It’s an interesting discussion, and everybody seems to agree that there are significant and increasing conflicts between copyright and free speech.

In her presentation, Jessica Litman used my experience as an example of the chilling effect of the DMCA. Somehow this reminded me of the caption (but not necessarily the title!) on this classic despair.com poster: “It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.”

How To Annoy Your Mother-in-Law

Look up her age here. Then send her an email informing her that anyone on the Net can do the same.

UPDATE (9:00 PM): How to run up your mother-in-law’s AOL bill: tell her she can look up her friends’ ages.