Jack Valenti, Dead at 85 650
saforrest writes "Jack Valenti, a man whose influence in both Washington and Hollywood was profound, died today at age 85. He first became famous as special assistant to Lyndon Johnson: he can even be seen in the famous photo aboard Air Force One. In 1966, he quit this job to become president of the MPAA, from 1966 to 2004."
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
RIP, Jack!
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
MP3 Link here:
http://www.cyberbee.com/yesteryear/oz_37.mp3 [cyberbee.com]
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Darker thhan you have ever imagined.
Did Netcraft Confirm It? (Score:2, Funny)
-Nick
Re:Did Netcraft Confirm It? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Did Netcraft Confirm It? (Score:5, Funny)
Further reports of Valenti's death are coming in; for reasons that are as yet unclear, he was found naked and petrified in Soviet Russia. When as we all know, old people like Valenti live in South Korea. And.... UUURGH!!!
(Dogtanian is yanked off the stage by several angry mods)
(RIP Dogtanian's karma, 2002 to 2007)
You forgot... (Score:4, Funny)
$%*&^*^#^!@!# (CONNECTION LOST)
connection reset by peer (Score:3, Funny)
Re:connection reset by peer (Score:4, Funny)
Frosty piss... (Score:4, Insightful)
Rot in hell, you son of a bitch.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
I know some people that were sued by the MPAA under his regime, who didn't have any pirated movies, and who were nearly ruined by legal expenses.
I don't care about angry MPAA fans and their mod points, he deserves a long line of people waiting to piss on his grave for the laws he and the RIAA have inflicted upon an unwilling majority of citizens in this country.
It's been ages since I've been to a movie because of him.
It's all anime for me now.
Not a dime to the MPAA-affiliated studios until the DMCA is shot down and buried for good.
Re:mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll go along with SilentChris' incredulity. I don't remember any fans of the MPAA on slashdot, ever, at least since the DeCSS deal, and even then, the general mood against MPAA was chilly before that.
That doesn't mean the fans don't exist, but I'd think that they would be an insignificant minority. As such, they wouldn't have enough mod points to do anything about the seemingly legions of MPAA anti-fans that are on slashdot.
Re:mod parent up (Score:5, Funny)
He may well have been hung, but I believe you meant hanged [wikipedia.org]...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
But was he well hung?
This is a day I'll never forget! (Score:5, Interesting)
For only the third time, the theme of the day is "Encouraging Creativity". Let's all show Jack how creative we can be.
Re:This is a day I'll never forget! (Score:5, Funny)
Now there's the Slashdot I know and love! (Score:4, Insightful)
But now there are suggestions of celebrating a person's DEATH, and desecrating his grave, just because he didn't want you to watch some movies for free. Now, I'm a big advocate of copyright reform--I even donate to the EFF--but to show such hatred that you're happy about the end of a human life? Just because you disagree with him about copyright law? Wow.
Just, wow. Now there's the
Re:Now there's the Slashdot I know and love! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because he participated in the wholesale theft of consumer rights that people are mad at him.
Re:Now there's the Slashdot I know and love! (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, the point is that I disagree with him, but I certainly don't think the issues at stake are serious enough to CELEBRATE HIS DEATH over.
The lack of compassion and respect for human life some people are showing here scares me far more than any lack of compassion for consumer rights the MPAA has shown. Hell, the closest thing I can think of is when one of the RIAA's targets died, and they went after their family. Even they called that off after public uproar.
And even if they did want all copyright infringers dead, that's no reason to emulate such behavior.
I respect fair use and consumer rights, but I respect human life even more.
Now I remember why commenting on
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He worked to undermine their rights (and succeeded) - why should they consider him anything other than vermin?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your rights haven't been breached by him. what the law allows has changed. It happens all the tim
Re:Now there's the Slashdot I know and love! (Score:5, Insightful)
Your stance, on the other hand, is patently sociopathic (and that's *not* hyperbolic vitriol, unlike your abject comparison of dictators and mass murderers). Just because his actions were entirely within the rules of the system, that does not mean his actions or his character are beyond reproach.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
You're right, I was so wrong (Score:4, Funny)
It was called the Guillotine.
America's problem is we hate the French and did not learn to emulate them in this case.
Re:Now there's the Slashdot I know and love! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, it's not as bad as murder, rape, etc., but taking significant steps towards destroying the whole system of "art" of every kind is a pretty damed-able offense, which easily overrides all else. I mean, we're not talking about murdering someone, just glad to see one going away, who made his money in the most cynical and destructive way possible.
Re:mod parent up (Score:5, Informative)
It's all anime for me now.
Now that really IS a travesty.
Personally, I disliked Jack way before any of YOU people did... well I hated him for stuff he did earlier, at any rate.
I'll always remember him as the SOB who helped the (even bigger SOB) LBJ win office by really shady tactics. In a documentary about Barry Goldwater (LBJ's opponent), Jack basically said "yeah, it was messed up, but it's OK cuz it worked!" Yeah, thanks for Vietnam, cock.
Of course, the MPAA rating system (which has a really Excellent documentary [imdb.com] written about it) has pretty much borked the movie industry.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We had "advisers" in there as early as Eisenhower. There was some escalation under Kennedy but not very much. LBJ escalated the conflict out of a seemingly insane attempt to 'save face' to show we weren't going to be intimidated by those [insert racial epithet]. More Americans died in Vietnam under LBJ than any other president. There's a documentary called "The Fog Of War" that shows a recorded conversation between Robert MacNamara and LBJ talking about the supposed to
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:LOL (Score:5, Funny)
cite please (Score:5, Informative)
and you have the gall (in another post) to call other states "redneck" ? tell your 'redneck state' to hire some better sysadmins from the "crazy redneck" states i've lived in where one is NOT provided an attorney by the civil courts
so, since everyone here seems to disagree with you, I would respectfully ask for you to cite your source.. I am quite interested to find out if this is true. As of yet, I am under the impression that nothing is free in the US legal system.
Now let's be nice (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now let's be nice (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Frosty piss... (Score:5, Funny)
That'd be their final judgement.
Re:Frosty piss... (Score:5, Informative)
phonetically: "Homa sto kolo tou, zoi se logo mas"
which roughly translates as "Dirt up his arse, life to us"
It is typically said when learning of the death of someone you prefer in their new state.
Re:Frosty piss... (Score:5, Informative)
Rot in hell, you son of a bitch.
Velenti was famous for this quote.
"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."
And thus the first quote can be seen as quite hilarious.
Re:Frosty piss... (Score:4, Interesting)
Careful! My karma was "excellent" two days ago. Then I commented on an Anonymous Coward post stating little more than "Bush. Worst. President. Ever." on a story that wasn't even about Bush getting modded "+5 Insightful." By the end of the day, my Karma was "Terrible". Read my sig for opinion of opinionated Mods. Read my Journal for SlashDot rules. Look at my Karma to see how well they are followed.
Just my experience. May the mods have mercy on me.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Please mod me insightful for no particular reason.
It was on April Fool's Day. Were my posts offtopic? Definitely. Were they troll? Definitely not.
The Karma system is broken.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't until he got into politics that he turned evil, and after all, didn't we forgive Darth Vader at the end?
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
obligatory quote from (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're not a very good Christian.
Forgiveness requires admission, repentance, atonement, and determination to not repeat past sins.
You can't just absolve someone, for no reason.
Re:Good (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Forgiveness requires admission, repentance, atonement, and determination to not repeat past sins.
Depends on which brand of Christianity you subscribe to. Fundamentalist Protestants, for example, generally believe that to be forgiven by God, you just have to ask.
And a rather famous (to medieval historians, anyway) involved Emperor Henry IV begging forgiveness from Pope Gregory VII. Gregory asserted that the throne had no right to meddle in the appointment of officials to Ch
Darth Valenti (Score:5, Funny)
"He's more politician than man now, twisted and evil
He did his duty at the time. (Score:4, Insightful)
he was at one time a valuable member of the human race, and flew 51 combat missions as the pilot of a B-25 during WWII.
He did his duty and that is admirable, but his record for oppressing others afterwards leads me to believe that his choice of sides was an accident of birth. Good and evil involve more than bravery and sacrifice.
Re:Good ?? (Score:3, Insightful)
The guy is dead. No need to be disrespectful of a dead guy. Don't send flowers, that's fine. But no need to piss yourself over it.
just my opinion, feel free to disagree.. it's your right. Someone out there proba
I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all of us are pure evil, and Jack has to be applauded for moving the industry in the right direction. I only hope his successor is a forward-thinking visionary.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are refering to Clearplay [wikipedia.org] and the variations on that theme from other companies then you don't really know what you are talking about. Ultimately all of these censoring systems are about the people who buy a DVD being able to watch it in whatever fashion they feel like. Valenti was entirely consistent in his anti-consumer approach with his attempts to kill off Clearpla
Bye bye, Jack. (Score:2, Funny)
May Satan put you in a screening room with nothing but heavily blocked and poorly encoded DivX movies playing 24x7xInfinity.
Rest in Peace, sweet prince.
Re:Bye bye, Jack. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bye bye, Jack. (Score:5, Funny)
He will be missed (Score:2)
I think that's about all my Karma will allow me to say.
Good riddence (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good riddence (Score:5, Funny)
By the time he digs all the way to daylight, hell come up just in time to terrorize China’s thriving movie industry.
C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:C'mon (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:C'mon (Score:4, Insightful)
Because that makes you worse a man than he was. Do you suppose that Valenti thought that he was not doing the right thing? Celebrating his death makes you mean, and small, and unworthy of the freedoms you purport to advocate. This death will do nothing to advance the cause of freedom; celebrating it is petty and pointless.
Perhaps you should spend some time learning to be a human being, before you leave high school.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up, way up. First sane comment for this article. Sometimes
My condolences to his friends and family, if any manages to read these lines.
Re:C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think that's why people are dancing, then you are the one who needs to grow up. Piss on that bastard and more generally on what he represented --- that if you have enough money you can buy the laws in our "democracy". May he roast in hell.
Re:C'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
Valenti was a dinosaur of protectionism who worked tirelessly to hold the country back in the pre-internet era, seeking to do with legal means what could not be done with technical means. Instead of encouraging Hollywood to embrace new technologies and develop new business models incorporating them he pushed to outlaw them - trying to make the vcr illegal with his boston strangler quote is one example of just how far he was willing to go to distort the truth to repress technology. Regardless of one's beliefs about copyright and culture, he was no friend to nerds.
The best thing that can be said about his passing is that if we are lucky, his death will mark the end of the era of the copyright dinosaurs and the beginning of one in which creative artists are directly compensated and society stops paying enormous taxes to distributors whom have set themselves of up as tolltakers without providing any significant value in return.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, for fucks' sake. The guy was a complete dick, but he is FAR from the worst that humanity has seen, as one might tend to beleive by the reactions shown here. This is not April 1945. And please, before you turn this into another "freedom of the masses" discussion, i'll repeat: all the guy did was restricting the way you
What! (Score:5, Funny)
Okay, that's it... You're out of the club!
Odd thing to note (Score:5, Funny)
Until I see that footage, I'm not going to believe tha...
(Hold on - someone's at the door.)
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH.....
Re:Odd thing to note (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics is personal. It's personal when someone can lose his house, car, etc. because a political lobby got copyright expanded in both scope and duration. It's personal when a cartel's desire for more profits makes criminal the free use of our computing equipment. Friend, there's not much more personal than having your freedoms taken away for the sake of someone else's business model.
So you're right - what I posted does not make me a great person. But Jack Valenti couldn't have made it much more personal if he tried.
rest in peace (Score:5, Insightful)
Rest in peace Jack.
(In heaven, there's no copyright law to violate. Everything is P2P. For reals!)
Guestbook (Score:2)
Hey, there, ladies and gents (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not asking for a moment of silence or anything. I'm just saying that the man deserves some dignity. He was misguided, at least, but he was a human being.
Not everyone qualifies as a Gentleman (Score:3, Insightful)
I know this man wasn't exactly our mascot, but can we please not celebrate the death of another human being? I'm not asking for a moment of silence or anything. I'm just saying that the man deserves some dignity. He was misguided, at least, but he was a human being.
I'm sorry if this comes as a surprise to you, but many of us on Slashdot are assholes, and honest enough to admit it to ourselves. Furthermore, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time and place for everything. I trust no-one here would di
Rest in Hell, Jack (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Now, if you were to send him copies of your movies, or better yet, copies of your friends' movies, we might want to attach magnets to his body, mount coils in the coffin, and use the spinning to generate enough electricity to power The Pirate Bay for the next year.
Even though (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Even though (Score:5, Informative)
For further information please watch the documentary "This film is not yet rated".
Perhaps it is time to stop and think. (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps it's time for YOU to think? (Score:4, Insightful)
REALLY?
Will the textbooks five hundred years from now speak of the great 20th century tyrants and mention Hitler, Stalin, Castro and Jack "PG-13" Valenti?
How would that work? Hitler murdered his millions....Stalin murdered his tens of millions....Valenti was a tool of the MAFIAA....
Re:Perhaps it's time for YOU to think? (Score:5, Funny)
REALLY?
You're right, that's silly, Castro isn't even dead yet...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Perhaps it is time to stop and think. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hitler was a person. Mussolini was a person. This is not to say that Jack Valenti is on par with Hitler, because he is not, but where do you want to draw the line between "go ahead and celebrate" and "mourn his death"?
I'm so relieved! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm glad we save our energy to tackle real problems like world hunger, war, government encroachment, etc...
Let's not be disrespectful... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh who am I kidding. He was an asshole.
Valenti's family deserves simple courtesy (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking to those of you who have expressed distasteful feelings here, try to remember that there is such a thing as "winning gracefully," "being a good sport" or whatever you wish to call it.
I don't like Valenti on the balance. He did some good things, but his last actions in life were, in my opinion, bad. This isn't the time to debate them.
One of the great measures of a person throughout our history is how they treat their fallen enemies. Take care how you treat yours now. Don't debase yourself, the community or "the cause" with your immature comments.
I have not won anything but hope. (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking to those of you who have expressed distasteful feelings here, try to remember that there is such a thing as "winning gracefully," "being a good sport" or whatever you wish to call it.
The most disrespectful sentiment is that his death is some sort of victory. It's not because the bad policies and laws he fostered and believed in are still here. His passing brings some hope of change and that is what we celebrate.
This isn't the time to debate them [unAmerican laws].
On the contrary, now is the perfect time to reflect on the man and his beliefs and what he accomplished. What better time will there ever be?
He believed in digital restrictions until at least 2004 [mit.edu] and probably went to his grave without understanding the real social cost of such control. To this day, I'm forced to chose between digital freedom and participation in popular culture. There is no middle ground because people like him considered you and me an insignificant minority who should use other options. Rights don't work like that. You can't violate people's rights because few people would bother to exercise them. While many of the things he said have been repudiated for 20 years, the logic he used never changed and he continued to say things we all hate. Those things hurt all of us every day.
The passing of generations is often the only way real change happens. Mr. Valenti was a product of a different time. His loyalties reflect those times but his intransigence is timeless. The run away success of the VCR was helpful to those he professed loyalty toward, and his opposition was harmful to them. It is surprising that he never learned the lesson. We can all feel sad for his family but we can also look at the world as a place that's a little less hostile.
Re:Valenti's family deserves simple courtesy (Score:5, Insightful)
But that having been said, we're not talking about a "fallen enemy." He never lost. Valenti pretty much won the vision that he had. And that vision included heavy lobbying for the eggregious provisions of the DMCA, which to this day put people in jail for things that otherwise are defined as their right to do. Leaders still lionize him.
He instituted the hollywood ratings system, true, but he also ensured that the body was the most secrative and uncontestable organization inside the US. He also ensured that the people within that body followed his viewpoint about the world, and that it basically carried the weight of law, and as such became the most censurious organization in America. One could argue that, more than any other single individual, he's the reason why you can blow someone's head off in an R rated movie, but you can't show a woman touching herself through her clothes... Why violence is A.O.K. but physical intimacy is just wrong.
"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." When asked about using 4 second clips in a home movie project, he replied "There's no fair use to take something that doesn't belong to you."
And people really do go to jail over this stuff. We're talking about someone whose paranoia and lack of knowledge led to unbased responses which are now routinely taking chunks of people's lives away. And even before he was responsible for the death of real security research in the US, he was already the father of modern censorship here. Let's not forget his help in selling the Vietnam War to the population.
This is the perfect time to debate his actions. This is the only time to debate his actions. What is the measure of a man? Here was a man who repeatedly prioritized business over freedom. And while he may have had his own reasons for doing so, this is not the sort of thing we should be pointing to our children and saying "be like that."
There is, by and large, no such thing as evil people. Jack was not an evil person. But he did many, many bad things with the combination of misdirected intentions and personal charisma. And now, with the US forcing other countries to synchronize with our draconian copyright laws, his legacy will belong to the world too. This is the perfect time to acknowledge that good people do bad things, and frequently the people whom you would define as the best people have the power to do the worst things. Also, this is the perfect time to reflect upon how our modern culture is owned by large corporations in a similar fashion to how midevil culture was owned by the church. If we're to prevent another mickey mouse copyright extension, [wikipedia.org] now would be the time to harden our resolve.
One may complain that we demonize the man because he took away something as trivial as movies. This is not true. We demonize the man because, for something as trivial as movies, he was willing to take away our freedom.
And in other news... (Score:4, Funny)
he stated : "There's only enough room for one of us down there, and though I invented Lawyers this guy owns them all."
Slashdot editors do edit! (Score:5, Interesting)
I see both these links were removed. Did that really need to happen? Yes, we all hate Valenti, etc., etc., etc. Does this article really need to be nothing other than a collective bitchfest? The man was a big fat jerk, but do we really need to talk about nothing more than that?
In that case, here is Lord Byron's poem on Lord Castlereagh [wikipedia.org]:
out of touch (Score:4, Interesting)
An important reminder... (Score:5, Interesting)
Every time these organizations cycle out officers, there will be younger, 'hipper', more intelligent people taking their places.
Sometimes you just have to let a few generations die off to make progress.
Re:An important reminder... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a problem, because in a lot of these people's minds there is no moral difference between the two systems. In other words, they live by the patterns they learned in the dictatorship, while enjoying the benefits of a democracy. Thing is, this doesn't really work, because they don't understand the fundamental issues of living in a democracy, like making the leadership accountable. That is the duty of everyone that lives in a democracy. This is a price we have to pay for enjoying the benefits of democracy. It is not a convenient thing to do, to carefully evaluate and then elect the best candidate and if he messes up, hold him accountable.
That was the theoretical part, but it has very real consequences and it is a very real problem. The people who spent most of their lives in a dictatorship, combined with a democrafically aging society makes a very bad match for democracy. Most of these people still evaluate parties based on who will give them the most gifts, who appellates more on the 'politics' of their youth, which was a dictatorship. They aren't troubled if some politician (dare I say prime minister) acts like as if he's still back in that dictatorship. It is the "we'll throw you some bones, just don't question the leaders" philosophy of a dictatorship. I'm sick of the way it permiates into and poisons a would be democracy through the minds of people who have suffered in the previous system.
The future is more hopeful though. The youth who didn't live in that system rejects those ideas with a big majority. The age line which divides the younger people and the more democratic parties from the old people and the ex state party is going up. Normal thinking is slowly spreading as people are born who were not poisoned by a regime.
This might not be too closely related to the MPAA, but should tell you something about the power of the mindset and it's effects.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it's refreshing to piss on the grave of people we really, really, really hate. Too bad that they don't care about it, or they might stop doing what they are doing. I mean, I for one wouldn't like to have a funeral with a ton of people coming just to check personally if I'm REALLY dead and it isn't just wishful thinking.
But I doubt that Jack cared, or that his successor will. They know we hate them. They know we'd at best offer them a glass of water if they were drowning. Still they continue. If we want them to stop, we gotta make their life miserable, not their death. They don't care about us as long as they're living, how much less do they care once they're dead?
But, you know, nothing but good about the deceased and all that, so I want to end this with something good about Jack: He was
Re:RIP Mr. Valenti (Score:5, Insightful)
His belief was that fair use should be outlawed because it interfered with corporate profits and you're praising him for that?
I understand it's crass to speak ill of the dead, but Valenti wasn't a terribly nice guy.
Re:Can we be civil? (Score:5, Funny)
The people would have lived in fear of his insanity.
Thankfully a knight might have challenged Jack and killed him in combat.
In the modern world we just have to wait for old age (or scandel) and hope the next guy to pay off the powers that be will be less effective.
Don't ruin the hope.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you, but copyright is a free speech issue, and speech is pretty damn important. What he did at the MPAA was no better than advocating any other form of censorship. Should we be sad about the deaths of book-burners too?