For nearly ten years, Universal was delighted to accept StudioCanal's investment of hundreds of millions of dollars to offset Universal's financial obligations. During most of this period, StudioCanal and Universal were corporate siblings through common ownership by the French company Vivendi. The StudioCanal/Universal joint venture financed forty-four Working Title motion pictures, including About A Boy, Bill Elliot, Bridget Jones Diary, Frost/Nixon, Love Actually, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Pride And Prejudice, and United 93.

Last October, StudioCanal concluded an audit of the joint venture's development and overhead expenses, which Universal had managed. StudioCanal also concluded audits of Universal's distribution of several of the joint venture-produced motion pictures, in several (but hardly all) Universal-assigned territories and in several (but hardly all) media.

Those audits revealed that Universal was violating its fiduciary and contractual obligations to StudioCanal. For example, based on the audit reports, StudioCanal is informed and believes, and based thereon alleges that: (a) Universal intentionally hid from the partnership and kept for itself benefits it derived from off-balance sheet financing arrangements; (b) Universal failed to report, or reported negligible amounts of, ancillary revenues from sources such as music publishing, only to somehow "find" several million dollars in such revenues after receiving the audit reports; (c) Universal retained for itself financial benefits from vendors, thereby profiting for itself at the expense of its partners; (d) Universal double-charged the partnership for producing and other fees paid to Working Title without StudioCanal's knowledge or approval; and (e) Universal deducted millions of dollars in unsubstantiated expenses before reporting the results to its partner StudioCanal.

Then I got to thinking, what if I were the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) or the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)? How would I handle the theft of my iPod and the advice from the police on how to avoid future break ins? Rather differently, as I explain below . . . .

So if I were the MPAA, how would I handle this?

1. Berate the cop who answered my call for not stopping the crime before it happened. I would also go around to everyone in my neighborhood and accuse them of "supporting theft" from their failure to set up a neighborhood watch to protect my right to leave my iPod in the front seat of my car.

2. When the cop told me that I could reduce the likelihood of future car break-ins by keeping electronics hidden, I would shout at the cop for "supporting theft." After all, I have a perfect right to keep my iPod in my car, prominently displayed if I want. How dare this cop tell me to change my behavior to avoid getting robbed!

3. Later, I would try to get the cop who advised me on how to avoid future car break-ins fired for "abetting car thieves." I would conduct a public smear campaign in which I accused this cop of being in bed with thieves, fences, and other nefarious dealers in stolen goods because he "supports theft" by advising me how to avoid future car break-ins rather than setting a 24/7 guard on my driveway or preemptively arresting anyone who looks like he or she might steal my iPod. After all, if you really cared about stopping theft, you wouldn't tell me to change my behavior or take steps to protect myself! I have a perfect right to leave my iPod in my front seat, and theft is wrong. So telling me to hide my iPod to avoid a break in means you don't really want to enforce the law.

4. While I'm at it, I will also accuse my neighbors of secretly wanting to steal my iPod. They have motive (who wouldn't want a free iPod?) and opportunity, so they are all prime suspects. I will demand the police conduct a house-to-house search. If they are too busy, I insist the police give ME the right to do a house-to-house search. I will also start harassing my neighbors and treating them like criminals. If they tell me to bugger off, and demand to see a warrant before I search their homes for my iPod, I will point to their bad attitude as proof that they are either thieves or support thieves. Why else would they object?

5. I would lobby the Montgomery County Council to place a 24/7 guard on my driveway so I can leave my iPod in the front seat. I would also insist on a video surveillance system and fingerprinting for anyone who comes with 500 feet of my car. Any neighbors who complain about what a waste of tax payer money this is, or that it invades their privacy, or that they don't like giving fingerprints to police to protect my right to leave my iPod in the front seat "support theft" and deserve the smear treatment.

6. I would give $1 million in campaign donations to any County Council rep who votes for my proposals. I would give the same amount to the opponents of any County Council member who even suggests that my proposals are a little extreme and maybe I ought to just put my iPod in the glove compartment. I would hold parties where County Council members can meet famous movie stars and recording artists, all of whom will urge the members of the County Council to vote for my eminently reasonable proposal to avert the veritable crime wave of iPod thefts in my driveway.

7. I would produce statistics that show that Montgomery County loses thousands of dollars and numerous jobs annually from iPod theft from my driveway. Anyone who questions the accuracy of these statistics "supports iPod theft."

8. Then I will wonder why I am so unpopular with my neighbors. I will conclude they have been deluded by the pawnshop lobby. Or they support iPod theft. But it can't be anything wrong with me, since I have a perfect right to leave my iPod in the front seat of my car and anyone who questions any measures to protect that right either supports theft or is being controlled by the pawnshop lobby.

You may ask, wouldn't it actually be easier, cheaper and more effective for me to change my habits and be a bit more careful about leaving my iPod and other electronic devices on the front seat of my car? To which I can only say "if you can even ask that question, you clearly support iPod theft."

Stay tuned . . .

Cross-posted from Tales of the Sausage Factory

As the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, my office is responsible for conducting oversight over the USTR and trade negotiations. To do that, I asked that my staff obtain the proper security credentials to view the information that USTR keeps confidential and secret. This is material that fully describes what the USTR is seeking in the TPP talks on behalf of the American people and on behalf of Congress. More than two months after receiving the proper security credentials, my staff is still barred from viewing the details of the proposals that USTR is advancing.

The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations – like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association of America – are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement.

Congress passed legislation in 2002 to form the Congressional Oversight Group, or COG, to foster more USTR consultation with Congress. I was a senator in 2002. I voted for that law and I can tell you the intention of that law was to ensure that USTR consulted with more Members of Congress not less.

In trying to get to the bottom of why my staff is being denied information, it seems that some in the Executive Branch may be interpreting the law that established the COG to mean that only the few Members of Congress who belong to the COG can be given access to trade negotiation information, while every other Member of Congress, and their staff, must be denied such access. So, this is not just a question of whether or not cleared staff should have access to information about the TPP talks, this is a question of whether or not the administration believes that most Members of Congress can or should have a say in trade negotiations.

Again, having voted for that law, I strongly disagree with such an interpretation and find it offensive that some would suggest that a law meant to foster more consultation with Congress is intended to limit it. But given that the TPP negotiations are currently underway and I – and the vast majority of my colleagues and their staff – continue to be denied a full understanding of what the USTR is seeking in the agreement, we do not have time to waste on a protracted legal battle over this issue. Therefore, I am introducing legislation to clarify the intent of the COG statute.

The legislation, I propose, is straightforward. It gives all Members of Congress and staff with appropriate clearance access to the substance of trade negotiations. Finally, Members of Congress who are responsible for conducting oversight over the enforcement of trade agreements will be provided information by the Executive Branch indicating whether our trading partners are living up to their trade obligations. Put simply, this legislation would ensure that the representatives elected by the American people are afforded the same level of influence over our nation’s policies as the paid representatives of PHRMA, Halliburton and the Motion Picture Association.

“What happened was a misinformation campaign,” said Moore. “People were basically misled into contacting Congressmen with claims that were extraordinary. There was some genuine concern, but as for it being a genuine home grown grassroots up-from-the-streets opposition, I beg to differ on that.”

"We're in a transformative period with an explosion of technology that's going to need content... We're going to have to be more subtle and consumer-oriented.... We're on the wrong track if we describe this as thievery."

For the TPP to achieve that vision, it is essential that the final TPP agreement incorporate comprehensive and high-standards for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights – including patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. And that outcome can only be achieved through continued and heightened U.S. leadership. By contrast, any attempts to weaken IP rights or to exclude any sector from protection must be strongly rejected and would be inconsistent with overall U.S. Government policy and U.S. economic and trade interests.

We commend your Administration for recognizing the key role played by innovative and creative industries in driving economic growth, jobs and competitiveness. As recently highlighted in the March 2012 U.S. government report – Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus – U.S. IP intensive industries support more than one in every four jobs, over one-third of GDP, and approximately 60 percent of exports. The protection and effective enforcement of IP rights are therefore of critical importance to the economic growth and prosperity not only of the United States but also of its eight TPP-negotiating partners.

As you and your Administration have repeatedly recognized, strong IP protections have been an essential element in fostering the explosive growth in new and more efficient technologies, increased productivity, life-saving medicines and other health technologies, as well as a wide variety of creative and educational works. As a result, high-standard IP protections are a key driver of economic growth in the United States and overseas and are linked to the creation and retention of jobs in industries as diverse as consumer and industrial products, educational products and entertainment, scientific products and equipment and information and communications technology.

While the benefits of strong IP protections and enforcement are widely supported throughout the United States and safeguarded in our Constitution and laws, such protections are at serious risk in the ongoing TPP negotiations. Some seek to enshrine low standards of protection, with limited enforcement, in the final TPP agreement, arguing that U.S. proposals would be harmful and could undermine other interests.

The strong IP protections proposed by the U.S. government in the TPP negotiations do not represent, as some suggest, a threat to public health, the development and expansion of the Internet or rights of freedom of speech, but rather a much-needed response to increasingly sophisticated threats to IP protection throughout the world. More, not less, rigorous IP rules are needed to thwart the explosion in IP infringement, including of pirated, counterfeit and unlawful copycat products throughout all sectors of the economy, and trade-secret theft.

In their essence, the arguments against strong IP protections are largely based on the misguided assumption that strong IP protections advance only the interests of IP exporting countries and disadvantage countries with less well developed IP-dependent industries. In fact, the adoption of strong IP protections by all countries in the TPP and more widely promotes strong benefits for all, whether or not the country has developed its own major IP-based industries

Developed and developing countries that have adopted stronger IP protections have proven better able to develop their own technological, science, creative and other innovative and IP-dependent industries, advancing their own economic growth, productivity, exports, innovation and the interests of their workers and consumers alike.

The truth is that neither the content nor the technology industries could survive without strong protections for intellectual property.

Many of you are familiar with how the name Hollywood became synonymous with the birth of the American film industry. It was in Jacob Stern’s horse barn, at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, the story goes, that Cecil B. DeMille screened the first full length feature film 100 years ago.

Well, when it comes to the tech sector, replace “Jacob Stern’s horse barn” with “Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room” at Harvard, and you have almost the same story with the birth of Facebook.

In these and countless other examples throughout our history, the ability to give birth to an idea and convert it into economic success, whether it is the content of a film or the technology of the internet, depends on copyright and patent protection

One of the world’s most prolific bootleggers of Hollywood DVDs loves his morning farina. He has spent eight years churning out hundreds of thousands of copies of “The Hangover,” “Gran Torino” and other first-run movies from his small Long Island apartment to ship overseas.

“Big Hy” — his handle among many loyal customers — would almost certainly be cast as Hollywood Enemy No. 1 but for a few details. He is actually Hyman Strachman, a 92-year-old, 5-foot-5 World War II veteran trying to stay busy after the death of his wife. And he has sent every one of his copied DVDs, almost 4,000 boxes of them to date, free to American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"If I were younger, maybe I’d be spending time in the hoosegow."

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent letters of inquiry to at least five movie studios in the past two months, including News Corp's 20th Century Fox, Disney, and DreamWorks Animation, a person familiar with the matter said.

The letters ask for information about potential inappropriate payments and how the companies dealt with certain government officials in China, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the letters.

China's booming middle class is increasingly willing to pay tickets prices for a cinema experience, forgoing cheap pirated DVDs and free internet downloads.

Mr. Zebrak’s classification here was inexplicable tome in my rebuttal report and remains so now. He argues that there could be copyrightable selection and arrangement in the illustrations of this work, even though both the original work and the illustrations are clearly in the public domain. I dealt with and dismissed this possibility in my rebuttal report – indeed the site to which he cites in his original argument for infringing status explicitly identifies this exact book, in unchanged order and arrangement, as being published in 1871 in St. Petersburg. This book is at the most conservative possible classification,“highly likely in the public domain.” Mr. Zebrak will not concede even this, though he does at least change his classification to “Unknowable.” Again, I think the refusal to admit evenoverwhelming evidence like this indicates a predisposition to find infringement that is worryingly strong – and that predisposition appears to be a general one, which therefore has significance far beyond the files I was able to examine in the time available to me.

Photography 101 Podcast: This podcast is an example, again, of the same theme .As I pointed out in my rebuttal report, the podcast is in fact offered for free download online and its author confirms that he does not object to its redistribution. Mr. Zebrak – somewhat puzzlingly – introduces the iTunes terms of service into the picture, apparently imagining that iTunes has the ability to affect the copyright status of a work in which it holds no copyright. It does not. Mr. Wittenburg holds the copyright in his podcasts. He allows people to download them freely and to repost them and says so explicitly in his affidavit. There is no evidence that the version of the podcast posted on Hotfile even came from iTunes. Mr. Wittenburg refers to the podcasts being available in multiple locations online. Even if it did, the iTunes terms of service are a red herring. I may give a lecture which I record and post online, posting it also on iTunes. I hold the copyright and I may choose to allow posting and reposting as I wish. Copyright law gives iTunes no rights over the program and no rights to circumscribe what I allow with my own podcast – they have no copyright to infringe – and thus the claim that the file is "highly likely infringing" cannot be supported on this basis.

"Did my position on this issue evolve over the last 12 months? I am not ashamed to admit that it certainly did," Brigner writes. "The more I became educated on the realities of these issues, the more I came to the realization that a mandated technical solution just isn't mutually compatible with the health of the Internet."

A spokesman for the MPAA said his organization would not comment on Brigner's volte-face.

"I got it going, had downloads start from the US and Europe almost immediately, which made me a very happy guy," Taylor told TorrentFreak.

However, this enthusiasm faded quickly when he tried to access the torrent from a US connection a day later. Instead of a link to the torrent file the filmmaker was welcomed with the following message. “Torrent has been censored, as required by US court.”

I'm not going to revisit the events of last winter. I'll only say to you that I'm confident he's using his good relationships in both communities to do exactly what you and I have been talking about.

"Sen Dodd did not say SOPA is coming back to life. He said the tech and entertainment industries need to come together to work on a new solution and those conversations are beginning. SOPA is gone. The path forward now is a serious conversation between all involved industries about new solutions, and that was Sen Dodd's point."

In other words: movie and TV theft is inevitable. Why? Because it’s easy to steal something that, in physical form, exists only as data, and easy to justify stealing it as a result? Because information wants to be free, no matter the cost it took to produce or its creators’ judgments about how best to disseminate it? Because anything is fair game once it’s on the Internet? Because if I rip a movie file off of a DVD or camcord a showing at a theater, I have created that movie with my own labor and can do whatever I want with the file, including posting it online and making money from ad sales or subscription fees? Because by stealing films and TV, or watching stolen films and TV, I’m just exercising my First Amendment rights to freedom of speech? All those are arguments we’ve heard before.

Mike Masnick wrote that we need to “adapt and deal with reality,” and actually, I think he’s right – depending on which reality we’re talking about. Is it the reality that the Internet and the explosion of mobile technology have opened up vast new ways for us to communicate with one another and for film and TV-makers to offer their work to people who want to watch it? Because as Julia blogged last month, there are “more options than ever before to get movies and TV shows online safely and legitimately” – we have a list on MPAA.org here, and the creative minds in our industry are working on even more as we speak.

Is it the reality that some people do steal content online? Unfortunately, it’s clear that’s true – otherwise we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. But do “many, many people” really intend to engage in theft just to watch a movie or TV show cheaply or for free? We doubt it, particularly if legitimate, better alternatives are available; if they know it’s wrong; and if they understand it’s not a victimless crime.

But if what Masnick means is that we need to throw up our hands and look the other way while people who had nothing to do with making a movie or a TV show steal and profit from it, that is a reality to which we do not care to adapt, period.

Well, not sure. They [supporters of Creative Commons] do not always agree with what we preach. And you're talking about democratizing culture, this is not one of our interests. It really isn't my interest.

The GAO never got all of the information it requested from the Motion Picture Association of America, according to GAO administrators, including Loren Yager, the author of the summary report that ensued and director of the GAO's International Affairs and Trade efforts. The agency said as much in the report: "It is difficult based on the information provided in the study to determine how the authors handled key assumptions." Without the materials, government analysts couldn't properly evaluate the MPAA's 2005 survey...

Yet our industry faces the relentless challenge of the theft of its creative content, a challenge extracting an increasingly unbearable cost.

"The MPAA has submitted no proof that grant of the waiver will serve the public interest at all. To the contrary, what proof exists in the record shows that the 'problem' of a longer window for release of movies to MVPDs than for release on DVDs is a business decision made by MPAA's members. Rather than shed crocodile tears for the poor shut-ins and busy parents who must either subscribe to NETFLIX to get the earlier window or wait a whole thirty days, MPAA's members could simply negotiate a shorter release window."