The MPAA Hates You

I read an article today on BBspot (it's been slashdotted, so be patient as it loads) that I found hard to believe. The MPAA is apparently pushing for legislation that would require you to register your home theater system (defined as any television over 29" and a couch) with them at a cost of $50 or face steep fines for unlicensed public display of films. According to the MPAA's Dan Glickman, just because you own a DVD doesn't mean you have the right to show it to your friends. He is quoted as saying that the industry cartel would prefer that every person who views a movie purchases their own DVD, but considers a $50 per TV money grab as a "fair compromise". Their "compromise" also requires that home theater hardware built in the future collects data on what is being viewed (and even who is viewing it).

This is the latest in a string of attempts by the MPAA to change the fundamental structure of our copyright system from one where purchasing a copy of a movie confers certain fair use rights (among them the right to make a private non-commercial showing for your friends) to one where you can't even purchase your own copy of a movie. The MPAA would love to see a future where every movie is pay-per-view, and additionally, every person in the audience has to be paid for individually. Beyond the fact that this is awful for consumers in a purely financial sense, it also allows the major studios total control over what films are actually watchable by us. There is nothing to stop the major studios from censoring old films by simply refusing to make them available if no independent copies exist "in the wild". Or, if some financial or other disaster where to befall a movie studio, there would be no backup copies of our cinematic heritage in libraries. When copyright finally expires (perpetual copyright extension is another issue), no unencumbered copies will exist, effectively starving the public domain.

Now, I'm not necessarily opposed to paying a compulsory film license. In fact, I think it would actually be quite a good idea if you could just pay a flat, recurring fee for "all you can eat" access to music and cinema. The payment of the fee would allow you to download to your heart's content, and retain your own copies of material without having to authenticate them before watching. The sort of view-tracking that the MPAA proposes, if sufficient safeguards are introduced to protect privacy and anonymity, could be used to determine who gets what share of the compulsory licensing fees.

What the MPAA proposes however, is a compulsory surcharge that grants no licensing rights. It makes the assumption that all consumers are criminals (guilty of something which US copyright law doesn't even recognize as a crime), and exacts a fee from them essentially as penance. The data they wish to collect is not anonymous, and it's intended to prevent any use of media which they don't authorize, rather than to fairly distribute revenue to filmmakers. Because the $50 is a fee which doesn't really grant any rights to the consumer, the MPAA is also free to pursue a future where no one but them can own a copy of a film, you can only rent over and over again, with the constant risk that a classic film will be prevented from joining our shared cultural heritage in the public domain after an appropriate time. In essence, the MPAA doesn't care about the artistic and cultural importance of film, but they sure would love to have an extra $50 from you.