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Thursday, August 08, 2002 |
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Doc Knocks Another One Out of the Park
Memorializing one of the few times that copyright paranoia lost the day 
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You gotta read Jack Valenti's testimony against the VCR back in '83. That's when Jack famously said, 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. |
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But there's more. So much more... |
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But now we are facing a very new and a very troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the video cassette recorder and its necessary companion called the blank tape. And it is like a great tidal wave just off the shore. This video cassette recorder and the blank tape threaten profoundly the life-sustaining protection, I guess you would call it, on which copyright owners depend, on which film people depend, on which television people depend and it is called copyright... |
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Because unless the Congress recognizes the rights of creative property owners as owners of private property, that this property that we exhibit in theaters, once it leaves the post-theatrical markets, it is going to be so eroded in value by the use of these unlicensed machines, that the whole valuable asset is going to be blighted. In the opinion of many of the people in this room and outside of this room, blighted, beyond all recognition. It is a piece of sardonic irony that this asset, which unlike steel or silicon chips or motor cars or electronics of all kinds -- a piece of sardonic irony that while the Japanese are unable to duplicate the American films by a flank assault, they can destroy it by this video cassette recorder... |
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Now, I don't have to tell anybody in politics -- I have spent most of my adult life in politics and you learn one thing. Nothing of value is free. It is very easy, Mr. Chairman, to convince people that it is in their best interest to give away somebody else's property for nothing, but even the most guileless among us know that this is a cave of illusion where commonsense is lured and then quietly strangled. That is what it is all about... |
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And my favorite exchange: |
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Mr. VALENTI. Now, let me tell you what Sony says about this thing. These are not my words. They are right straight from McCann Erickson, whom you will hear from tomorrow, who is the advertising agency for Sony and here is what they say. They advertise a variable beta scan feature that lets you adjust the speed at which you can view the tape from 5 times up to 20 times the normal speed. |
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Now, what does that mean, Mr. Chairman? It means that when you are playing back a recording, which you made 2 days or whenever -- you are playing it back. You are sitting in your home in your easy chair and here comes the commercial and it is right in the middle of a Clint Eastwood film and you don't want to be interrupted. So, what do you do? You pop this beta scan and a 1-minute commercial disappears in 2 seconds. |
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Mr. RAILSBACK. Is that all bad? |
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What got me started on all this was a signature in an email this morning: |
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Jack Valenti is to the American film viewer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone. |
[Doc Searls Weblog]
11:59:12 AM 
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Smile, You're on In-Store Camera. Thanks to advances in various types of recognition software, you're not even safe from prying eyes -- and greedy retailers -- when you wander around a department store. By Erik Baard. [Wired News]
Brickstream Corp. makes a software system that can track customers as they move through a strore, noting how they flow through while they shop, what they look at, and how long they wait in line. Store managers can they track how the customers are shopping, how long theya re waiting in lines, the entire experience in the store. This allows them to better plan for peak service times, and therefore to better serve their customers.
Those who avoid shpping online and using frequent shopper cards can now be tracked as well, which may mean the death of private shopping, should large chains adopt this technology.
10:23:59 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Ryan Greene.
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