Hollywood's lead lobbyist steps back from limelight

With announced plans to step down when a replacement is found, he will leave behind an industry deeply entangled in a love-hate relationship with the technology world. On the one hand, Silicon Valley-created tools have revolutionised the moviemaking business, allowing the creation of films such as "Shrek" and Pixar's string of hits.

On the other, Hollywood studio executives see movie swapping on the Internet and DVD burners as the modern equivalent of plunder-obsessed Greeks pouring through Trojan walls. Studio heads remain worried that their traditional ways of doing business will be catastrophically disrupted and hope to avoid the plight of the music business over the past several years.

In recent years, Valenti has asked Congress to impose far-reaching technological measures blocking or impeding digital copying. The most ambitious proposals have failed, but much of the Motion Pictures Association of America's copy protection proposals have been moving forward piecemeal in other venues, including the Federal Communications Commission.

With speeches that sound drawn from a Hollywood screenwriter's pen rather than from a lobbyist's desk, Valenti had been an apt representative of Hollywood's own self-image of glitz and magic. He is a deep believer in the appeal of filmmaking in its most classic sense -- as an immersive storytelling medium unlike any other.

But he will probably be remembered best for his decades-long battles against the unrestrained spread of copying technologies, from videocassette recorders to today's peer-to-peer tools. As he prepares to step down, his organisation is boosting its monitoring of film swapping on the Internet, while holding lawsuits against individual computer users out as a potential next step.

ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com spoke with Valenti recently about the changing relationship between Hollywood and technology, and about his own longtime role at the Motion Picture Association of America.

Q: How stable is the movie business, as you leave, with respect to piracy and technology? Have the enforcement efforts that you and the music industry have been engaged in made a difference?
A: We have a lot to do. We have made some strides, particularly with analogue and disc piracy. But in the Internet -- that's in the future. We think that's going to be a real problem. For example, we know that experiments now going on at CalTech and Internet2 and other high-technology centres, the (download) periods -- well, at CalTech they have brought down a DVD in five seconds. Internet2 has brought one down in one minute. So we know it will be minutes for takedown time in -- I'd say 18 months to two and a half years. So we're looking ahead to that time.

But I think I'm confident in the technology in this country. The best minds in the information technology business are working with us, and I'm very optimistic that we will find some sturdy protective clothing to put on these movies within the next 18 months or so.

You played a large role in educating Congress and various administrations about the issue. Are you happy with the way that Congress and the Department of Justice, in particular, are pursuing the issue today?
I think that Congress -- the great majority of Congress -- understands with great clarity that intellectual property is America's greatest trade export. It has more than 5 percent of the gross domestic product of this country. Almost a million people work in some element of the movie business, distribution business or retail businesses alone. It is an awesome engine of economic growth in this country. They want to make sure that it doesn't decay or shrink or be splintered in the years ahead. So there is a great deal of support and understanding for the protection of intellectual property in Congress.