Jack Valenti quotes

No one today knows what is indecent. (Jack Valenti)
I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently, because Lyndon Johnson is my president. View quote
Jack Valenti
There is no fair use to take something that doesn't belong to you. That's not fair use. View quote
Jack Valenti
Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law. View quote
Jack Valenti
A huge parasite in the marketplace, feeding and fattening itself off of local television stations and copyright owners of copyrighted material. We do not like it because we think it wrong and unfair. View quote
Jack Valenti
If what you own cannot be protected, you own nothing. View quote
Jack Valenti
If you buy a DVD you have a copy. If you want a backup copy you buy another one. View quote
Jack Valenti
I don't care if you call it AO for Adults Only, or Chopped Liver or Father Goose. Your movie will still have the stigma of being in a category that's going to be inhabited by the very worst of pictures. View quote
Jack Valenti
In a political struggle, never get personal - else the dagger digs too deep. View quote
Jack Valenti
A public domain work is an orphan. No one is responsible for its life. But everyone exploits its use, until that time certain when it becomes soiled and haggard, barren of its previous virtues. How does the consumer benefit from the steady decline of a film's quality? View quote
Jack Valenti
You've already got a DVD. It lasts forever. It never wears out. In the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless. (Jack Valenti)
If you design your own machine, you can't fuss at people, because you're one of just a few. How many Linux users are there? View quote
Jack Valenti
My own home, we do it in our on home. I know about that. Anybody that has a VCR, talk to them, and I ask you to use your own commonsense... If you had the power to sit on a playback of a recording and you could wipe out the commercials or not wipe out the commercials, what would you do? ... We all do it. But when you do it, you strip away the reason for free television. ... As far as I am concerned, I am going to continue taping because the plaintiffs have said they aren't going to do anything to me. I am not committing any crime. They know that. View quote
Jack Valenti
The VCR is to the American film producer, as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone. View quote
Jack Valenti
Film-makers must decide what story to tell and how to tell it. View quote
Jack Valenti
There isn't anything in the world that can't be made better. View quote
Jack Valenti
Every parent in America has the total power to control all television programming that is dispatched to their home today. View quote
Jack Valenti
Fair use is not in the law. View quote
Jack Valenti
I really do believe we can stuff enough algorithms in a movie that only the dedicated hackers can spend the time and effort to try to plumb through those 1,000 algorithms to try to find a way to beat it. View quote
Jack Valenti
Nothing of value is free. It is very easy, Mr. Chairman, to convince people that it is in their best interest to give away somebody else's property for nothing, but even the most guileless among us know that this is a cave of illusion where commonsense is lured and then quietly strangled. View quote
Jack Valenti
I think lobbying is really an honest profession. Lobbying means trying to persuade Congress to accept your point of view. Sometimes you can give them a lot of facts they didn't have before. (Jack Valenti)
I don't know any other business that tells you not to go in and buy their product. View quote
Jack Valenti
Copyright term extension has a simple but compelling enticement: it is very much in America's economic interests. View quote
Jack Valenti
I hope people will say I never had a hidden agenda, and I never played it cute around the turns, and that my integrity stayed intact. View quote
Jack Valenti
On-line service providers and others have a key role to play in freeing cyberspace of the taint of copyright lawlessness. Accountability for copyright violations committed by users is as essential for advancing this indispensable goal. Who is responsible if a valuable copyrighted work is downloaded from a provider, and then copied on a digital video machine from which thousands of copies can be made, the last copy as pure and pristine as the first? And if no one can be held responsible, then who and what is to prevent the flood that will surely follow? This is a loophole larger than a parade of eight-wheelers through which a dam-busting avalanche of violations can rupture the purpose of your bill every day. View quote
Jack Valenti