Questions for MPAA visit to Duke

• Given that much of Disney's film empire is based on creative appropriation of older stories, how can you justify putting fences around sources for the next generation of inspired creators?


• I got my wife a four-disc DVD set for Valentine's day, but one of our neighbor's children scratched up the second disc. In your opinion, should it be legal for me to make a DVD backup of the full four-disc replacement set I've been forced to buy, even if I have to get around some kind of built-in protection?
• If he states "circumvention is circumvention" (or something similar), then say, "Ok, so I'll have to spend another $40 on the DVD set."
• If he says "You can do that now", say "Well, I looked around, and the only DVD-backup software is currently being sued by Hollywood for copyright infringement. Oh well."
• If he says, "You have to do that with CD sets anyway, why should DVDs be different", point out that it is legal to make archival copies of CDs in digital format.


• U.S. copyright terms are 95 years, 20 years longer than the terms established by international treaties. If Congress proposed to extend this term to a century or longer, would your organization support or oppose that bill?
• If he waffles AT ALL, ask "So, your organization could potentially see valid reasons why it would be necessary or proper to have copyright terms of over a century?"


• Region coding restricts which players can play which DVDs. Do you know of any legal way for me to play a DVD I bought in France that is not available in the US on a player from the US? If not, why not? Why about families in the military that move around? Do they have to buy a different DVD player every time they move?


• Security-related research papers have been the target of legal threats from the recording industry under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). A felt-tip marker can be used to circumvent protected audio CDs. Are these what you intended to have restricted as "circumvention devices" when you supported the DMCA? If not, will your organization make it an official stance not to sue researchers -- such as Professor Felton of Princeton -- as the recording industry threatened to do?


• Many supporters of strong, government-mandated copyright protection claim it is economically impossible to compete with "free" digital copies online. Bottled water, cable TV, and Microsoft Windows are all quite profitable despite competing with free alternatives. Why can't movie distribution companies offer their own download services that don't require restrictive technologies and successfully compete with "free"? After all, I'd much rather get a movie file from the company, rather than risk getting a computer virus downloading a file from a peer-to-peer network.