Pirates at the MPAA?

Ampersand points to a Bitch Magazine interview with Kirby Dick, director of the This Film is Not Yet Rated, now playing at a theatre near you.

The film lambasts the MPAA for its well-known rating system, first implemented in 1968 by Jack Valenti. But, in the Bitch interview, Dick reveals evidence that the MPAA — anti-piracy champion it purports to be — can be pretty casual about distributing illegal copies in-house. Kirby Dick:

Before I submitted the film, I called up the administration of the ratings board, and I said, “Can you assure me that there will be no copies made of this?” And they assured me, in writing, in e-mail, and on the phone, that not only would no copies be made, but that only the raters would see it. Well, I subsequently learned that an MPAA attorney had seen it. I learned that [MPAA president] Dan Glickman had seen it…

I got a call from an MPAA attorney who said “Look, Kirby, I have to tell you, we have made a copy of your film. But you don’t have to worry, because it’s safe in my vault.” [Laughs.] I can tell you that wasn’t reassuring. In a way I wasn’t surprised, but on the other hand, there’s such hypocrisy there. The MPAA has launched this huge antipiracy campaign, and on their website they define even one act of unauthorized duplication of material as piracy. And that’s exactly what they did.

I’m looking forward to checking this one out.

Watch the trailer.

Liz Losh highly recommends it here.