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It's Quipping Time For Jack Valenti
by Bara Vaida
Whenever Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), speaks at a conference about copyright protection, he is sure to draw some fire and amusement. His appearance at Monday's Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) summit on the transition to digital television was no exception.
Valenti spoke as part of a roundtable with CEA President Gary Shapiro, National Association of Broadcasters CEO Eddie Fritts and National Cable and Telecommunications Association CEO Robert Sachs about the obstacles to that transition. After Valenti argued for the copy-protection technology known as the broadcast flag, Los Angeles Times journalist Jon Healy asked him why technology companies should pay for the implementation of the flag. "In other words, why should they pay for the lock on your home?" Healy asked.
"I don't want you to buy a lock; I just don't want you to steal anything from my home," Valenti said to the audience's amusement. "We don't ask you to invest in our movies ... but you sell lots of consumer electronics devices because of them."
Then Valenti turned to Shapiro, whose association has been seeking changes in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and said, "You'd have a Maalox moment if you found out your VCRs and DVDs were being cloned." To which Shapiro quipped back, "That's called China, Jack."
A few moments later, Shapiro asked Valenti if he thinks consumers can legally record movies at home and watch them later, a practice known as time shifting. In the early 1980s, Valenti opposed the usage of videocassette recorders to copy movies. "Is time shifting legal?" Shapiro asked Valenti.
"Well, of course it is. ... There's a legal briefing about that ... which I think you've read," Valenti answered, again spurring audience laughter. Valenti then put his hand on Shapiro's shoulder and said, "Gary, you would have been great in 500 B.C., in the time of Sophists," the early Greeks known for successfully arguing a point even if it was based on false assumptions.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported last weekend that Valenti has asked the major movie studios to craft a plan to succeed him at MPAA, though he declined to say when he might leave. Rumors swirled in early January that House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman W.J. (Billy) Tauzin, R-La., was poised to replace Valenti.
Valenti told the Post: "If I had a short list of names, and I don't have a short list, he'd be on it." Tauzin spokesman Ken Johnson said in January, "No one has approached Chairman Tauzin about a job, and he is happy with the one that he's got."
New Jobs, New Duties In Bush Administration
President Bush announced this week that he intends to nominate Robert Nichols to be assistant Treasury secretary for public affairs, a promotion from his current position of deputy assistant secretary for public affairs. Before joining Treasury, Nichols was the communications director for the Electronic Industries Alliance and before that served as communications director for former Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and as press secretary for Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash.
Elsewhere in the Bush administration, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said he intends to appoint Pamela Turner as assistant secretary for legislative affairs. Turner is currently senior vice president for government relations at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. Before joining the private sector, she was deputy assistant to the president for legislative affairs at the White House from 1981 to 1989 and a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill from 1968 to 1981.
And Education Undersecretary Eugene Hickok will assume the additional role of acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, the department announced last week. Hickok replaces Susan Neuman, who left the department in January. The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education is helping states implement the 2002 education reform law.
The News From Capitol Hill
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., announced that John Keefe has joined the Democratic staff of the House Intelligence Committee as professional staff member. In his new role, Keefe is to assist the committee in its oversight of the management and performance of U.S. intelligence agencies.
Keefe served as a professional staffer of the Joint House-Senate Inquiry on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He was also special assistant to the U.S. ambassador to Beijing and special adviser to the director of policy plans at U.S. Central Command. And he spent 12 years with the Center for Naval Analysis in various positions throughout the world.
Meanwhile, the House Democratic Caucus last week designated the following lawmakers as ranking minority members of the House Science subcommittees: Bart Gordon of Tennessee at the Space Subcommittee; Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas at the Research Subcommittee; Nick Lampson of Texas at the Energy Subcommittee; and Mark Udall of Colorado at the Environment, Technology and Standards Subcommittee.
And Cornerstone Government Affairs has hired Frank Cushing, the majority clerk of the House Veterans' Affairs and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee, as vice president and equity partner.
Before his nine years in the House, Cushing spent nearly 15 years as a staffer in the Senate, where he served as: staff director, both majority and minority, of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee; clerk and staff director of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee; and legislative assistant to former Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho.
When he worked on the VA-HUD subcommittee, Cushing's responsibilities included funding issues for the National Science Foundation.
The 'Giant Dragon Slayer' Lands New Gig
Former White House cyber-security chief Richard Clarke is heading to the Council on Foreign Relations to lead a new First Responders Task Force, The Washington Post reported. Clarke spent 11 years in the White House, and ran the counter-terrorism office under both President Bush and former President Clinton.
Council head Leslie Gelb told the Post that Clarke "is known as a giant dragon slayer."
In other news, members of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) have chosen their officers for the 2003-2004 term, which begins April 1. The officers will be: Jane Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers; Anthony Lucki, president and CEO of Harcourt; and John Sargent, CEO of Holtzbrinck Publishers.
Friedman will serve as chairwoman of the AAP board, with Lucki as vice chairman and Sargent as treasurer. Friedman succeeds Robert Evanson, who is retiring from McGraw-Hill Education, as the AAP chair.
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