MPAA Swears It’s Not Pushing For More Anti-Piracy Legislation
Earlier this week, the House’s Creative Rights Caucus threw a bash with various Hollywood types — Patrick Duffy!! — including the Motion Picture Association of America, one of the most powerful backers of SOPA and other anti-piracy legislation.
But when MPAA CEO Chris Dodd — a former Senator who is no stranger to controversy — spoke to The Wrap at the event, he said his organization is giving up legislative efforts to penalize pirates.
“The world is changing at warp speed. We are not going to legislate or litigate our way out of it,” said Dodd. “We are going to innovate our way out by educating people about the hard work of people.”
That was the point, he claims, of the D.C. event — to show lawmakers that piracy hurts not just the studio execs with their fancy cars, but all sorts of people who the studio execs can’t name because they aren’t important enough.
“In this space everyone has to contribute to ensure that peoples’ content can be respected,” continued Dodd. “Instead of finger pointing at everybody and arresting 14-year olds, the answer is making our product accessible in as many formats and distributive services as possible at price points they can afford. We are discovering that works.”
Of course, one of the MPAA’s recent efforts is trying to convince theatergoers to call the cops on people they see trying to record a movie in the theater.
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