The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), is a United States non-profit business and trade association An industry trade group, also known as a trade association, is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry. An industry trade association participates in public relations activities such as advertising, education, political donations, lobbying and publishing, but its main focus is collaboration between designed to advance the business interests of movie studios A movie studio is, in the established sense of the term, a company that distributes films. Literally, however, the term denotes a controlled environment for the making of a motion picture. This environment may be interior (sound stage), exterior (backlot), or both. In general parlance, the term is synonymous with "major film production. The MPAA administers the voluntary but dominant MPAA film rating system The Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system is a rating system for films. It is used in the U.S. and its territories to rate a film's thematic and content suitability for certain audiences. The MPAA system applies only to motion pictures that are submitted for rating. Other media may be rated by other entities. A voluntary. The primary MPAA ratings are G (general), PG (parental guidance suggested), PG-13 (parental guidance suggested under the age of 13), R (not suitable for children under 17), and NC-17 (children 17 and under are not admitted).
As part of its campaign to curb copyright infringement Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works covered by copyright law, in a way that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works, the MPAA fights against sharing copyrighted Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. Copyright does not protect ideas, only their expression or fixation. In most jurisdictions copyright arises upon fixation and does not need to be registered. Copyright owners have the exclusive works via peer-to-peer A peer-to-peer, commonly abbreviated to P2P, is any distributed network architecture composed of participants that make a portion of their resources directly available to other network participants, without the need for central coordination instances (such as servers or stable hosts). Peers are both suppliers and consumers of resources, in file-sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multi-media , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of storage, transmission, and distribution models and common methods of file sharing incorporate manual sharing using removable media, networks. The MPAA's anti-piracy campaign has gained much publicity and criticism.
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History
In 1922, the major American movie studios founded the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America[1], with former U.S. Postmaster General Will H. Hays William Harrison Hays, Sr. , was the namesake of the Hays Code for censorship of American films, chairman of the Republican National Committee (1918–1921) and U.S. Postmaster General from 1921 to 1922 as its head. The group administered the so-called "Hays code The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry censorship guidelines which governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It was originally popularly known as the Hays Code, after its creator, Will H. Hays" film censorship system from 1930 to 1968.
In 1945, Hays was succeeded by former U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Eric Johnston. It was during Johnston's tenure that the name of the organization was changed to "The Motion Picture Association of America". Johnston inherited the stringent censorship responsibilities associated with the Hays Code, but added to his mission the promotion of American films, which were gaining in popularity overseas in the post-World War II era. Following Johnston's death in 1963, the MPAA's top post remained unfilled for three years, while studio executives searched for a successor.
Alongside the progress of civil rights, women's rights and labor movements, a new kind of American film was emerging - frank and uninhibited. Amid society's expanding freedoms, the movie industry's restrictive regime of self-censorship became increasingly outdated. In May 1966, Jack Valenti Jack Joseph Valenti was a long-time president of the Motion Picture Association of America. During his 38-year tenure in the MPAA, he created the MPAA film rating system, and he was generally regarded as one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world, former Special Assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963. He is one of four Presidents – along with John Tyler, Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon – who served in all four elected Federal offices of the, was named MPAA President. That same year, sweeping revisions were made to the Hays Code to reflect changing social mores. In 1968, Valenti founded the voluntary film rating system easing restraints on filmmakers' creative and artistic freedoms, while fulfilling its core purpose of informing parents about the content of films so they can determine which movies are appropriate for their children. More than forty years later, the rating system continues to evolve with a changing society.
In 2004, after serving as MPAA president for 38 years, Valenti retired and was replaced by former Kansas Congressman and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman Daniel Robert "Dan" Glickman served as the United States Secretary of Agriculture from 1995 until 2001, prior to which he represented the Fourth Congressional District of Kansas as a Democrat in Congress for 18 years. He is currently the Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Glickman led the association during a period of significant industry transformation, retiring from the position in the Spring of 2010. While the advent of the digital era created new opportunities for delivering movies to consumers, it also gave rise to a potential threat to the industry - online movie theft. [2]
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Structure
MPAA members include the "seven big" Hollywood Hollywood is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California - situated west-northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word "Hollywood" is often used as a metonym of American cinema, and is often interchangeably used to refer to the greater Los studios[3]:
- Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, Inc. is a corporation which develops scripts and oversees theatrical TV production for The Walt Disney Company's production companies and imprints. The Group, one of Hollywood's major film studios, is based at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. It includes: (The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company , also known simply as Disney, is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world. Founded on October 16, 1923 by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, the company was reincorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929. Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader);
- Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony. Its group sales in 2010 has been reported to be of $7.2 billion (Sony Corporation Sony Corporation (Japanese: ソニー株式会社, Sonī Kabushiki Kaisha?) (TYO: 6758) is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008). Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of);
- Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount is (Viacom Viacom (NYSE: VIAB)(NYSE: VNV), short for "Video & Audio Communications", is a United States-based media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television. As of 2010, it is the world's fourth-largest media conglomerate, behind The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner and News Corporation);
- 20th Century Fox Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation , also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox, is one of the six major American film studios as of 2010[update]. Located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills, the studio is a subsidiary of News Corporation, the media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch (News Corporation News Corporation , often abbreviated to News Corp., is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009 . The company's Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder is Rupert Murdoch);
- Universal Studios Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBC Universal, is one of the six major movie studios (NBC Universal NBC Universal, Inc. is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base. The company owns and operates two American television networks, numerous cable channels, and a group of local stations in the United States, as well as motion);
- Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. is an American producer of film and television entertainment (Time Warner Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) is the world's second largest entertainment conglomerate in terms of revenue (behind Disney and ahead of News Corporation and Viacom), as well as the world's largest media conglomerate, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc. and Time Inc., ().
MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., or MGM, is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures was an MPAA member until 2005, shortly after Sony Pictures Entertainment's failed attempt to buy that studio. Other, smaller studios and distribution companies that are not members of the MPAA avail themselves of the association's rating and title registration services.
From 1966 to 2004, Jack Valenti Jack Joseph Valenti was a long-time president of the Motion Picture Association of America. During his 38-year tenure in the MPAA, he created the MPAA film rating system, and he was generally regarded as one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world was MPAA president and strongly associated with the association because of his long tenure and high public profile. Valenti retired on September 1, 2004. Dan Glickman Daniel Robert "Dan" Glickman served as the United States Secretary of Agriculture from 1995 until 2001, prior to which he represented the Fourth Congressional District of Kansas as a Democrat in Congress for 18 years. He is currently the Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, now serves as the MPAA chairman and chief executive officer.[4][5] On September 22, 2005, Glickman named A. Robert Pisano as chief operating officer and president.[6] Kori Bernards is the MPAA's corporate communications vice-president and principal spokeswoman.
Anti-piracy efforts
Home recording
In the early 1980s, the Association opposed the videocassette recorder The videocassette recorder , is a type of video tape recorder that uses removable videotape cassettes containing magnetic tape to record audio and video from a television broadcast so it can be played back later. Most VCRs have their own tuner (for direct TV reception) and a programmable timer (for unattended recording of a certain channel at a (VCR) on copyright grounds. In a 1982 congressional hearing, Valenti decried the "savagery and the ravages of this machine" and compared its effect on the film industry and the American public to the Boston strangler.[7]
Publicity campaigns
The MPAA has promoted a variety of publicity campaigns designed to increase public awareness about piracy. Some include:
You Wouldn't Steal a Car
"You Wouldn't Steal a Car" was a 2004[8] advertisement by the MPAA appearing before program content on many DVDs DVD, also known as Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc, is an optical disc storage media format, and was invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Time Warner in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage. DVDs are of the same dimensions as compact discs , but are capable of storing just under seven times as much data. Skipping this segment is not possible with many commercial DVD players unless the machine's bundled software ignores user operation prohibition The user operation prohibition is a form of digital rights management used on video DVD discs. Most DVD players prohibit the viewer from performing a large majority of actions during sections of a DVD that are protected or restricted by this feature, and will display the no symbol or a message to that effect if any of these actions are attempted or a DVD ripper A DVD ripper is a software program that facilitates copying the content of a DVD to a hard disk drive. They are mainly used to transfer video on DVDs to different formats, to edit or back up DVD content, and for converting DVD video for playback on media players and mobile devices. Some DVD rippers include additional features, such as the ability is used.
The voiceover and text of the ad states, "You wouldn’t steal a car. You wouldn’t steal a handbag. You wouldn’t steal a mobile phone. You wouldn’t steal a DVD. Downloading pirated films is stealing. Stealing is against the law. Piracy: it’s a crime."[9][10] Later versions substitute "pirate DVDs" for "downloading films online" is stealing. Parodies of the ad sometimes appear in pirated DVD copies, using a sound-alike version of "No Man Army" by The Prodigy The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music group established by Liam Howlett in 1990 in Braintree, Essex. Along with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers and The Crystal Method, as well as other acts, members of the Prodigy have been credited as pioneers of the big beat genre which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s and 2000s. They. Parodies in TV shows often involve absurdist In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent meaning in life and the human inability to find any. In this context absurd does not mean "logically impossible," but rather "humanly impossible." The universe and the human mind do not each separately cause the Absurd, but takes on the equation of minor crimes to severe ones - such as in TV series The IT Crowd The IT Crowd is a British sitcom, written by Graham Linehan and produced by Ash Atalla for Channel 4. The series has won BAFTA and International Emmy awards. Three series have been produced to date with a fourth series commissioned for 2010, where the list of crimes is extended to "You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman." and beyond.
News in Film (blog)
... The Yellow Handkerchief in limited release on February 12, rock biopic The Runaways (now rated R by the MPAA ) set for March 19, and Eclipse on June 30. ...
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To share or not to share on the rating we received from the MPAA on the film April Showers Andrew Robinson director of the soon to be released April Showers and I were discussing whether
