Jack Valenti, president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), has been railing against technology since at least the early-1980s. His Chicken Little act has always been as overproduced as a Busby Berkeley musical.
In 1982, Valenti likened the then-cutting edge VCR to the Boston Strangler: “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.”
Back then, Sony was evil incarnate. Now Sony pays a goodly portion of Valenti’s salary, so the new enemy has to be… you guessed it: the Internet. Except Sony makes evil tools of infringement. Ho-hum, or rather, Hi-ho.
Jack Valenti is among the strongest human reasons I can think of to prohibit corporate lobbying. It’s especially irksome when it’s done in the name of “consumer protection.”
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