Jack Valenti departs for eternity: Will copyrights someday last that long?
Jack Valenti, one of the planet’s foremost copyright zealots as president of the Motion Picture Association of America, is dead after a stroke at age 85.
He had a good side, too, including some kindness he showed to me personally when he blurbed a XyWrite guide I’d written. And he’ll be widely missed in Hollywood and elsewhere. The Valanti-promoted ratings system for films was far from optimal, but it could have been worse, and it helped keep at bay some of the Bible-thumpers who would have wanted to censor everything. What’s more, he could be surprisingly open minded about copyright-related matters such as the Creative Commons concept and J.D. Lasica’s Darknet book.
That said, it was always rather spooky—the way Jack and his ilk kept talking about eternal or near eternal copyright: “forever, minus a day,” as he put it. The debate, of course, will long outlast the mortal Valenti.
Now that he dwells in eternity of one kind or another, maybe he’ll get a chance to see if his copyright dreams are realized. As both a writer and reader, I hope not.
Related: Washington Post on Valenti: Obit and photo gallery and appreciation.
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