Opinion

The Industry Standard

March 27, 2000

Letters

MPAA: Oh, Behave!

Professor Lawrence Lessig [ http://www.thestandard.com/people/display/0,1157,1739,00.html ] has many lawyerly assets, but after reading his article in The Standard ["Cyberspace Prosecutor," Feb. 28 [ http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,10885,00.html ]], I am bound to say that accuracy is not among them.

A first-year Harvard Law student would quickly understand that the case to which Lessig directs his attention is not about free speech or denial of any rights. It's about using property that doesn't belong to you.

ICraveTV, the Canadian Web site, picked up Canadian TV station signals as well as a number of U.S. TV broadcasts just south of the 49th parallel. It altered the picture, reduced it to a 2-inch square and sold advertising around the rim of the screen. It neither asked permission to use the programs, nor did it attempt to negotiate a price with the program owners.

U.S. TV networks, among others, sued iCraveTV in federal court in Pittsburgh (where its domain name was registered), and Canadian producers and TV stations filed suit in Canada. The court's swift response was a temporary restraining order, which commanded the Web site to close pending a trial. Chief Judge Ziegler of the western district of Pennsylvania made it clear the site was violating copyright law.

Lessig refers to me as the Internet's Kenneth Starr. Reading his accusatory, fitful prose convinces me that he got his law degree from Bob Jones University and his evidence from Austin Powers. [The issue] was not about the abandoning of the First Amendment. It was simply, solely and totally about using copyrighted material to sell advertising on a Web site with a security system to lock out American users that was as effective as holding back tides with a spaghetti strainer. That is theft.

Linux users are not being barred from playing DVD movies on their systems. The professor obviously is not aware that all Linux users have available to them a licensed application to do precisely that.

The Internet ranks alongside Gutenberg's movable type and the invention of television as one of the three great inventions of human society. But it cannot reach its potential if partisans insist on following Lessig's tattered counsel.

Jack Valenti
President and CEO
Motion Picture Association of America

Lawrence Lessig responds:
Jack Valenti's letter is colorful, but misses the point. Judge Ziegler did not find that iCraveTV had violated Canadian copyright law; there was therefore no "theft" in Canada. It uttered speech to which it had a right in Canada; American courts silenced it because the speech bled into the United States. That is the speech issue.

It is true, however, that I am not aware of any "licensed application" with which "all Linux users" can play DVD movies on their systems. That's because there is no such application.