Under the agreement, the MPA will provide information about upcoming member films about to be released in China. Chinese authorities will now confiscate any home audio or video equipment that is found playing pirated movies. While such an effort is difficult to enforce, it is the first time Chinese authorities have made any kind of public effort to deal with physical piracy - which by some estimates accounts for 90% of all home entertainment in China.

In furthering their efforts to stem the growth of physical piracy, the Bush administration has created a new senior position called "Coordinator of International Intellectual Property Enforcement." For this position, President George Bush elected Chris Israel, current Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Guierrez.

“Intellectual property theft costs U.S. businesses billions of dollars and weakens our economy,” Gutierrez said. “American ingenuity and innovation are driving forces in our economy and we need to protect our ideas, both at home and abroad. This new position will help us to be more aggressive and also help us to better coordinate our fight against intellectual property pirates."

Israel’s new job will be to work within the current administration and with foreign governments to develop policies encouraging the enforcement of intellectual property rights. Indeed, the job ahead of Israel is a daunting one, as billions of dollars worth of counterfeit material traverses the globe.

While the job at hand is may seem overwhelming, the MPAA is looking forward to Israel’s ascension.

“I heartily applaud the President for today’s action and appreciate the Administration’s commitment to fighting and winning the battle against intellectual property theft,” said MPAA CEO and President Dan Glickman. “Our industry alone loses billions each year to piracy. I particularly appreciate the stated commitment to reducing piracy in China, where we have a severe problem. The MPAA stands ready to cooperate and assist in this effort in any way we can.”
From

SLYCK.COM

You can read the US Commerce press release here.

PRESS RELEASE

(See the current article posted by Steve Bugge and being commented on — entitled, "Administration Addresses Copyright Piracy", about five news items downward from this one.)

If the freaking people who made movies did:
a) Made them cheaper
b) Didn't include 15 minutes of blasting commercials
c) Actually made something INNOVATIVE
I'd actually go watch a damn movie at the theater. Until then, I will always wait until I can find a copy of it on my own.

loses billions a year? that means that bewitched would've been a blockbuster hit and war of the worlds would've beaten spiderman 2 and star wars to have become an all time hit.

no, it means they would have gone ahead with "the hulk XXXVII"

" “American ingenuity and innovation are driving forces in our economy and we need to protect our ideas, both at home and abroad."

I've posted more original ideas on this site than I've seen appear in theaters in the last 2 years.

"we need to protect our ideas" because these days we have so few of them.

Capt that's cause you're so unique. ever think of being a screen writer?

He'd have to dumb it down first, comp.

yeah shadow mom, I have. I've written 3 movies, 5 books, a childrens novel and a play. It always comes down to the same thing though. every time I get tempted to publish them I run into the same slimy people. the whole business pretty much turns me off so I just write for myself now.

sorry comp, you and shadowmom are spelled so much alike I got confused

In fact I've even gone so far as to write music on occasion although it usually isn't received well.

Capt..you have to become a 16 year old, thin, blond haired girl with great skin and learn to lip sink and then you will be received better
~CW

we have gone through this time & time again. "Blank cassettes/CD's are going to ruin the music business." Nope, I think shitty music does a good job of that, or the assholes who promote that kind of garbage.(MTV, Clearchannel Communications, Now! That's What I Call Music vol.277,821......)And forget movies. I know most of the folks at my local theater, including the manager. Therefore, I can go see anything I want for free. But what has come out in the past decade that would make me wanna spend the TIME to leave the house for it. I understand that piracy can hurt somebody, someday, somewhere, somehow. But isn't there a war going on somewhere that is hurting people too?!?? "Forget that!!!! Down with the pirate!!!!!" Republican capitalism(The rich scratch each others ass) is great. .......sorry, I went off

damn. I gotta be thin? so much for pork rinds. (I hate pork rinds really, it just fit)

captdunsel, comp and I are so much alike, it's an easy mistake to make. You're forgiven...or thank you, whichever. Actually, comp and I do get along. We just don't agree on anything.

we look alike too. so it's easy to get confused.

you (at the MPA/A) say you are LOSING? you WILL LOSE -- everything -- once we start BOYCOTTING you (as we do of RIAA) and calling others to follow the path. DOWN WITH THE MPAA (and the corrupt Republican-democrat regime; vote Libertarian or Green and CHANGE America).

In Liberty,
Critto

and besidses, in Europe, Bush is overwhelmingly hated and often compared to Adolf Hitler. SIEG HEIL BUSCH!!!

Several things.

If the CD is copy protected, don't buy them until they improve on the security towards our favor and allow us flexibility.

If the DVD has unskippable content, don't buy them until laws cut the FBI sector to 2 minutes or less, or up to 2 previews before the movies. If it only has about 2 unskippable previews before the menu, I'll accept. But 15 minutes? That's unacceptable. If they put that **bleep** on the beginning, than I will just go to the theather or just stick with cable. They have no right to put unskippable crap that wastes 15 minutes of my time. Suppose if you had a party and you are going to put on a movie. Commercials would pop-up, and people would just walk away. They need to listen to us.

And as far as music goes, I know that you say that making copies steals our product. It is so...if you ARE distributing copies to your friends. But by not allowing us to make copies for our own personal use, you are hurting our culture, you are hurting innovation, and you are prohibiting fair use of our contents. These so-called DRMed WMAs are infurior, and they take away our rights to use the compression we want to have for the best quality when it comes to putting our music in our games and to our iPod. Please. I want to listen to music in our portable music devices with surperior sound, not by tinny crappy WMAs they throw at us. There ARE ways to secure MP3s, OGG, and others. So please, let us have a choice on compression when it comes to copying music.

Also, people would like to make back-up copies of software and video games. If I spend 60 bucks on a video game, I want to protect the product at all costs. Also on ebooks, we should be able to make personal copies, such as putting these eBooks on portable eBook readers. There are people who are blind and there should be a way to copy eBooks to an audio device so that the blind can hear the text.

It CAN be done. With the right security, we would be able to provide consumer flexibility, flexible use of copyrighted content, while controlling piracy. If the consumer is limited, the consumer will walk away. Simple as that. Copy protect these disks and put crappy WMA files? then we will walk away. Put 15 minutes of blasting commercials on the beginning of the DVD? They know that the consumers won't accept this. So PLEASE, it's time to put the balance back on track, and let the innovations go on.

I work for the military and I actively download movies because I don't get to see them in the theaters while I am deployed. I dare the MPAA to call me unpatriotic, sue me, and refernce the Patriot Act as its reasoning for me to go to jail. It would be a shame to have to admitt in court that most military networks in Iraq and other "vacation destinations" for the military have copywritten materials available on them 24 hours a day. It would be a shame to have to explain how local vendors in Iraq frequently get passes to come on the bases to sell copies of copywritten movies at dirt cheap prices to the soldiers.

“Intellectual property theft costs U.S. businesses billions of dollars and weakens our economy,”

So when did DUBYA give a real shit about our economy or domestic policies?

about the same time any other politician did.

politicians only care about what will line their own pockets. Is it any wonder that an oil man is President when oil prices reach record highs?

No, let them put on their unskippable commercials - encourage it! They just drive people to watch those films on a mess annoying medium. Pirate or download.

As long as they don't put a truck load of them.

I HATE long unskippable crap. Period.