Jack Valenti Actually Gets A Question He Can't Answer

from the un-fucking-believable dept

One of my complaints concerning most interviews with Jack Valenti concerning his views on copy protection is that most interviewers don't ask any of the tougher questions that Valenti should answer. Now, Slashdot is pointing to an interview of Valenti by an MIT student, where the student confronts Valenti about why he can't watch legally purchased or rented DVDs on a Linux machines, and actually shows Valenti some "illegal" DVD descrambling code, which apparently gets a curse out of Valenti. While it is amusing to see Valenti get flustered, it doesn't seem like the most productive interview. Rather than focus in on such a tiny aspect (why you can't watch DVDs on a Linux machine) it would have been more interesting to get at some of the bigger questions concerning the MPAA's views on intellectual property - such as how things like the VCR (which Valenti called "the Boston Strangler of the movie industry") actually saved the industry.

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