Amen. As bad a bunch of hypocrites as the MPAA may well be, they are a lot more like us than a bunch of bureaucrats would be--and if somebody tried to follow them, the FBI would be on them in a hummingbird's heartbeat! For an example of what the British Board of Film Censors could do before the "video nasties" scare, read Tony Earnshaw's book Beating the Devil
about the making of the classic horror film "Night of the Demon" (US title: "Curse of the Demon"). They went way beyond anything the MPAA ever even dreamed of!

No hypocrisy here. The statement on the web site is a position statement; obviously the MPAA knows that the statement does not reflect settled law because of the availability of affrimative defenses. It's just a strong statement of the MPAA's position.

Hypocrisy is always a strange charge, especially when levelled against a fictitious entity like a corporation. In addition to which, we all have self-contradictory or unworkable positions on one issue or another. For example, many here expect stores to "honor" price mistakes, but how many want to be held to their own mistakes? It's nearly impossible to be consistent, and I've never really understood why it's morally important to be consistent.

Anyway, this seems like a pretty easy case for the MPAA, assuming precedent for the evidentiary exception defense exists. This is lawyering 101.

Alleged rights violation.

And while I might expect that, as well, the real point to me is that the MPAA, as an organization, have no excuse that they were going to use it as evidence, and the MPAA seems to be claiming that they, as an organization, had a fair use right to copy the movie. Something that very probably isn't the case given their apparent lack of standing. (Not to mention that the copy apparently went to MPAA head Dan Glickman rather than to their legal staff. While Glickman is a law school graduate, I don't know that he operates as a practicing attorney for the MPAA). And also, given that the MPAA admittedly copies other movies, apparently without the consent of the copyright holder, it's unlikely that their explanation is the actual truth.

It doesn't really matter. The filmmakers aren't going to bring a piracy suit against the MPAA. As has been said, it's only been brought up to try to show the hypocracy of the MPAA and to get some publicity for the film.

That's an interesting way to look at hypocrisy. Essentially it's not hypocrisy to take actions contrary to your stated beliefs as long as you can come up with a B.S. justification for going against your beliefs.

In that case, there's really no such thing as hypocrisy.

(I hate discussions about hypocrisy because I always have trouble spelling it).

And I had this strange feeling that Episode III might upset me too so I just went ahead and downloaded it to make sure. Let's just say I won't be buying that movie on dvd

Also, does the whole idea of getting a rating for a movie titled 'This film is not yet rated' mean I can sue the film maker for false advertising when it comes out with a rating?
I smell a Neverending Story again.

The bumpers on the beginning of my DVDs say that copying will land me in jail, even copying without profit. The MPAA puts these bumpers there. The MPAA copied a movie, without the authorization of the owner. Do as they say, not as they do. THAT is hypocrisy.

If the MPAA had trademarked the phrase "This film is not yet rated" they could get the filmmaker for trademark infringement.

To be honest, the first step of illegality in copying a DVD would be breaking the encryption. That doesn't quite fit the MPAA's actions as they seemed to have copied from a digital tape source.

I'm wondering if the reporter for the story snipped the lawyer's comment, as anyone who knows about copyright and fair use would not ONLY use that it wasn't distributed for commercial gain as an excuse ... it would just be single criteria. I'd have to say that I agree with illennium in that you can't hold the MPAA's statement as law or hypocrisy ... they have the right to protect their board. Now, if the allegations of illegal invasion of privacy play false, then there would be cause for complaint. The timing of everything, however ... yup, publicity stunt.

Good point, except for the fact that the Comics Code is completely irrelevent now. At one point, a comic book without the code seal of approval (with some exceptions) could not get any kind of meaningful distribution (like an unrated or NC-17 film). Of course, distribution methods changed over the years (ie. comic specialty stores replacing newstands), and those new kinds of distributors and sellers didn't give a crap if a comic was code approved or not, so many comics were published without the code (and new publishers popped up who didn't join the code authority and had nothing to do with the approval process). Now the code is a complete non issue. Of course, it helps that comics are not the focus of the silly hysteria as they were back in the 1950's (I guess they are more under the radar, as parents find it more effective to instead blame movies and video games for the results of what could really be blamed on poor parenting skills. It's always easier to blame something other than yourself ). Anyway, as distribution methods change for films (as they had for comic books), maybe someday the MPAA could become as meaningless as the Comic Code Authority (as long as the government doesn't bully the film industry)

Merriam-Webster Dictionary: New word of the year award.

Seems to be an awful lot of ruckus over a Dick film