MPAA accused of motion picture piracy

THE MOTION PICURE ASS. of America stands accused of breaking its own piracy guidelines after it admitted making unauthorised copies of a film submitted to it for classification.

The accuser is film director Kirby Dick who sent a copy of his documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" to the MPAA back in November.

The film is to debut at the Sundance Film Festival this Wednesday and happens to take a critical look at the workings of the MPAA.

According to the LA Times, Mr Dick is "very upset and troubled" by the MPAA's admission that it had made copies of his work. The Association claims the director is just making mischief to drum up publicity for the movie. Dick's lawyer has written to the MPAA demanding explanations.

The film puts the work of the MPAA in the spotlight, accusing it of being too hard on sex, too soft on violence and publicly unaccountable. For its part, the MPAA reckons the film-maker's methods, allegedly involving rooting through MPAA's members dustbins and generally following them about, were a bit underhand.

Mr Dick says he emailed the MPAA seeking assurances that it would not make copies of the film. He now wants to know why it did so and has asked for all copies to be returned to him.

According to the MPAA's own website, "Manufacturing, selling, distributing or making copies of motion pictures without the consent of the copyright owner is illegal." µ

L'Inqs
LA Times
Sundance 2006
MPAA