First off, allow me to thank the Motion Picture Association of America for giving me an opportunity to use the word "pecksniff."
A few nights ago I was watching an episode of Dinner For Five, a show on the International Film Channel that featured legendary cult movie actor Bruce Campbell, director Roger Corman, director/dreadlocked metal dude-cum-director Rob Zombie, and actor Faizon Love eating dinner, drinking wine, and discussing the ins and outs of independent cinema.
Zombie and Campbell discussed the hilariously terrible anti-file sharing info-spots that have been running before movies for the last couple of years. Campbell's reputation for being an all around good guy was carved in cinema stone, as far as I'm concerned, when he didn't shy from blasting various major Hollywood icons and invited the MPAA to kiss the second most private part of his anatomy in a particularly creative fashion. On Dinner For Five, Bruce once again had me beaming with DIY Michigan pride (we happen to both be natives of the country's mighty hand) when he lampooned the idea that a schlocky add spot was going to stop anyone from file-sharing.
Those spots in question, of course, ask movie viewers to take the erroneous leap of faith that file sharing - not out-sourcing, ridiculous ticket prices, or sub-par big budget films - is the prime factor responsible for the movie industry's declining revenues, and is subsequently responsible for Joe Boom Mic Operator getting thrown out on the street to beg for change. A hopelessly reductive argument? Of course, but perfectly believable if your approach to a complex issue involves picking up Occam's razor and giving yourself a lobotomy with it before passing judgment.
The hard-line stance taken in these pre-movie commercials has recently allowed for the MPAA's tickling the file-sharing community with a bit of schadenfreude, as reported on The Inquirer on January 24th. Paul Hales reports:
THE MOTION PICURE ASS. of America stands accused of breaking its own piracy guidelines after it admitted making unauthorised copies of a film submitted to it for classification.
Hales writes that documentarian Kirby Dick sent his MPAA-critical documentary set to premiere at Sundance to the MPAA, and claims that the organization made unauthorized copies of it - a cardinal copyright sin according to the MPAA's website, which states that "Manufacturing, selling, distributing, or making copies of motion pictures without the consent of the copyright owner is illegal."
Not huge news in the overall conflict between file-sharing consumers and the companies who hate them, but there's always a bit of satisfaction to be found in seeing someone self-righteous hoist on his own petard, and the same goes for hulking corporate juggernauts. The MPAA claims that Kirby Dick is just "making mischief to drum up publicity for the movie," according to the article, but from over here it looks like an ever-so-tiny slice of corporate pecksniffery at its finest.
