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Motion Picture Association

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"MPAA" redirects here. For the television show, see My Parents Are Aliens.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), is a non-profit business and trade association based in the United States, which was formed to advance the business interests of movie studios. Its members, which include the "big six" major Hollywood studios, are:

The MPAA administers the voluntary film rating system. MGM was an MPAA member until 2005, shortly after Sony Pictures Entertainment's failed to buy that studio; it ended in a partly Sony-funded acquisition.

Political activities

Besides assigning its aforementioned film ratings, the MPAA lobbies on behalf of its members on a variety of issues including copyright and free speech. It promotes digital rights management technologies. The MPAA, along with its equivalent in the recording industry, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), has taken strong steps to reduce the number of file-sharing sites online where copyrighted films are available for download. In April and May 2005, signs appeared on the homepages of LokiTorrent and EliteTorrents (two large BitTorrent trackers), stating that they had been closed down because of encouraging the illegal distribution of copyrighted material defined as the distribution of copyrighted works without permission of the copyright holder.

Leadership

In 1922, the movie studio bosses hired Will H. Hays as the first president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America (MPPDAA). A former U.S. Postmaster General (and President Warren G. Harding's election campaign manager), Hays created the Production Code in 1930. It was laxly enforced until the major studios agreed — under threat of religiously-instigated State and Federal censorship — that every movie released, on or after 1 July 1934, would adhere to the Hays Office Production Code of the MPPDAA, or face a punitive pecuniary fine.

In 1934, Joseph I. Breen became president of the Production Code Administration (PCA) and served as head of the MPDPAA until 1945, when Eric Johnston assumed the PCA presidency, and it was renamed as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). In November 1947, Johnston was part of a private meeting with forty-seven movie studio executives in New York City, which resulted in the publication announcement, on 25 November 1947, of the Waldorf Statement, a two-page press release signalling the institution of the Hollywood blacklist. Eric Johnston remained MPAA president until he died in 1963; Ralph Hetzel was interim president until 1966.

From 1966 to 2004, Jack Valenti was MPAA president, virtually becoming the association's eponym because of his superannuated tenure and high public profile. Valenti retired on 1 September 2004, and Dan Glickman (a former U.S. Agriculture Secretary) became MPPA president.

Business-wise, through Kori Bernards, the association's corporate communications vice-president and principal spokeswoman, the MPAA's is legally battling against the BitTorrent technology, the peer-to-peer file-sharing communications protocol invented by Bram Cohen.

Controversies

Rating system

Main article: Motion Picture Association of America film rating system

Some of the MPAA's actions have been controversial. One example is the film rating system. Many believe that the intent of the various ratings has been subverted. For example, there is widespread access to R-rated movies even for those under 17, while the NC-17 rating spells commercial death for a film[1][2], undermining its purpose.

Film critic Roger Ebert has called for an entirely new system of ratings designed to address these issues. Some people criticize film-makers for editing their works to conform to the various ratings. For example, they might excise some extreme violence or sex to avoid an NC-17, or even "spice up" a children's movie so as to move from G to PG and appeal to older children. The ratings system itself is attacked as de facto censorship by free-speech activists, and conversely as too lenient in its content standards by some conservative critics, religious leaders, lawyers, and parental review sites. Kids-In-Mind is a parental review site that does not criticize the rating system, however they do mention that the rating system is malleable and inaccurate for several reasons. The site has also shown that an R-rated movie may be similar in content to a PG-13-rated movie at times. A Harvard study suggested that in 2003, more inappropriate content has been allowed in PG and PG-13 rated movies than in 1992. Another criticism is that the MPAA tends to be considered more complacent with violent content than sexual one. Other criticisms have included that there is more bias against homosexual sexual content than heterosexual. Also, movies with male genitalia tend to get a "harsher" rating than those with female genitalia.

Other critics attack the MPAA for its action on copyright issues. They claim that it inhibits legitimate uses of its products through laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and that it is too draconian in pursuing copyright infringers. The MPAA replies that it is attempting only to limit the reduction in profits caused by file sharing and other types of copyright infringement although many valid arguments exist to make its moves highly controversial. In 2006, the MPAA's moral authority on this subject was questioned. Filmmaker Kirby Dick's documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, itself an attack on the ratings system, was submitted for rating consideration. The organization then made unauthorized copies of it for certain employees of the MPAA itself.[3]

The MPAA was responsible for a police raid on the servers that hosted a Torrent Tracking website called The Pirate Bay on May 31 2006 by pressuring the Swedish government (where the servers were located) to take action. The Pirate Bay, in response, claimed that they had no basis for the seizure, and were back up and running on backups two days later. The MPAA issued a press release shortly after this raid in which they stated that they lost 6.1 billion dollars nation wide to piracy in 2005, and that internet piracy alone had cost the studios 2.3 billion. [4] However, contrary to MPAA statements, several studies and commentators have concluded that one download hardly equals one lost sale, since many downloaders would not purchase the movie if illegal downloading weren't an option.[5][6][7] This is especially true considering that a good portion ($1.4 billion) of the $6.1 billion figure represents what could be viewed as simply making a non-commercial backup, either virtually on a device or physically on another disc, which is protected under United States law. These numbers are further suspicious due to the private nature of the study, which cannot be publicly checked for methodology or validity.[8][9][10]

Though the MPAA has won several victories against online piracy such as the Razorback2 raid and a series of successful lawsuits against public torrent websites, piracy is still growing steadily with modern studies showing more and more participants.

The effect MPAA raids have had on overall online pirating traffic is, to date, limited—the day Razorback2 (a major server on the Edonkey2000 network) was shut down, Edonkey2000 network traffic stayed the same, showing negligible change.[11][12][13] However the MPAA has had a very successful history shutting down networks of pirated material and torrent sites, bolstering a record of approximately 75 during 2006.[14]

The MPAA has also forced some well known fanfiction sites such as Fanfiction.net to cease using the MPAA Rating System to rate fanfictions on the site due to copyright infringement on the rating system.

In 2007, English software developer Patrick Robin reported that the MPAA was illegally using his blogging platform, Forest Blog. Forest Blog is distributed for free under a linkware license; anyone who uses it must link back to his site where Forest Blog is offered for download. To remove the links back to his site, they must purchase a license. The MPAA had removed the links, without paying for a license.

On November 23, 2007, Matthew Garret notified the MPAA that it was in violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL) for distributing a software toolkit designed to help universities detect instances of potentially illegal file-sharing on school networks. This tool kit was based on the Ubuntu version of the Linux operating system, which is licensed under the GPL. The violation was distributing a derived work without making the the source code available. On December 1, 2007, Mr. Garrett notified the Internet service provider for the MPAA that, in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, he was requesting them to disable the offending distribution web site. It is not clear if this request was ever honored. However, the MPAA did change the site so as not to offer the toolkit for distribution.[15]

Monopoly

Since the MPAA members are the motion picture industry's most powerful studios, representing some of the world's largest media corporations, allegations of monopoly are often brought up by critics. Critics also point to the MPAA's support for closed standards that hinder competition. Other critics have suggested that films released by major studios (members of the MPAA) are given more deference in terms of ratings than films released by independents.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Ratings doc falls foul of raters". Guardian Unlimited. 2005-12-08. Retrieved 2007-07-26. The NC-17 rating [...] has proved the commercial death of many a film
  2. ^ Teodorczuk, Tom (2006-08-14). "Classified material". New Statesman. Retrieved 2007-07-26. An NC-17 certification [...] is seen in Hollywood as the kiss of commercial death.
  3. ^ Bangeman, Eric (2006-01-24). "MPAA admits to unauthorized movie copying". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
  4. ^ "SWEDISH AUTHORITIES SINK PIRATE BAY: Huge Worldwide Supplier of Illegal Movies Told No Safe Harbors for Facilitators of Piracy!" (PDF). MPAA. 2006-05-31.
  5. ^ Gross, Daniel (2004-11-21). "Does a Free Download Equal a Lost Sale?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
  6. ^ Oberholzer, Felix (2004). "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis" (PDF). UNC Chapel Hill. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  7. ^ Schwartz, John (2004-04-05). "A Heretical View of File Sharing". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
  8. ^ Fisher, Ken (2006-05-05). "The problem with MPAA's shocking piracy numbers". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
  9. ^ "Movie Piracy Cost 6.1 Billion". torrentfreak.com. 2006-05-03. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
  10. ^ "Hollywood study examines costs of film piracy". ZDNet (Reuters). 2006-05-03. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
  11. ^ "P2P Is Unstoppable". torrentfreak.com. 2006-04-12. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
  12. ^ "Movie piracy more popular than ever". Computing.co.uk. 2007-01-29. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
  13. ^ "P2P Raids and Lawsuits Just don't Work". torrentfreak.com. 2006-06-22. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
  14. ^ "STUDIOS MOVE TO THWART ILLEGAL FILE SWAPPING ON MAJOR PIRATE NETWORKS: MPAA Companies Take Action Against Torrent, eDonkey and Newsgroup Sites Used by Millions" (PDF). MPAA. 2006-02-23.
  15. ^ Paul, Ryan (2007-12-04). "MPAA's University Toolkit hit with DMCA takedown notice after GPL violation" (HTML). ars technica. ars technica, LLC. Retrieved 2007-12-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ This Film Is Not Yet Rated (Film). 2006-01-25. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |director= ignored (help)
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