Yesterday, I took a look at a Hollywood Reporter interview (Dialogue: Dan Glickman) with the new head of the MPAA, Dan Glickman (Know the Enemy: New MPAA Chief Dan Glickman). Today, the LA Times (reg. req.) interviews the new guy (New MPAA Chief Brings Bipartisan Skills to His Role).

Herewith, some thoughts on this interview.

Some have wondered why the MPAA has been so successful with members of the Republican Party, despite the fact that Hollywood, in general, provides much more support to Democrats. Well, those people can continue to wonder:

Almost everybody here [at the Republican National Convention] that I've met has been open, curious, friendly and positive. They all want to work with me…. I recognize that there are some who wanted a Republican in my job of president of the MPAA. But I think folks also wanted somebody good at consensus building and that would fight for the motion picture industry. Clearly the movie industry, and all the industries interested in creative and copyright protection, have a lot of friends here in the Republican Party.

What he has to say on copyright infringement:

I don't think that MPAA is anti-technology. But it's vital that we combat piracy with a three-pronged approach: improve [piracy deterring] technology, enforce the laws and educate people, largely the younger people, in high schools and universities....We are engaging Congress on piracy. There are several bills that predate my coming into this job that are aimed at addressing this issue. These bills will make it easy to go after pirates. I think what we need to do is make the standards [that allow law enforcement] to go after violators more realistic.

His take on the tech industry ought to send shivers up the spines of Silicon Valley types:

I have spent time with our technology people in Washington, trying to familiarize myself with the technology. But the bottom line is, we need to make it as difficult as possible for people to engage in piracy activities.

Read the whole thing. See also, Techdirt (Dan Glickman's Bad First Impression).

via digitalmerging.la