>> it was a meeting the vice

president's office requested to get more information about an industry that employs overall nearly six million people in this country. that is the only group of industries that have a positive balance of payments surplus with every single country in the world, and it was his goal to get more information about the nature of the copyright, copyright issues especially intellectual property theft. and he was very explicit, this is not piracy, this is theft. he called it pure, unadulterated theft was his exact terms and what can the government do about it, you know? and the white house has lots of meetings, so i'm sure they'll meet with people who have different perspectives on these same issues, but i thought it was a fair meeting. as you know, i spent many years in the government including in a cabinet post, and we held meetings like this all the time. we were always careful to have a come by nation of different types of -- combination of different types of perspectives, but i think this was an

extremely positive meeting. joe biden when he was a senator was chairman of the judiciary committee, he was very involved in issues of intellectual property, so it's natural for him to continue his interest in it. >> host: what are the main issues the industry is facing when it comes to theft, piracy, intellectual property? >> guest: historically, it was always what you call physical piracy, it was the dvds or the cds on the streets, and you still see them in various parts of the world, including the united states. but more and more the issues relate to internet piracy and internet theft. the ability to transfer information on the web is instantaneous. the web is ubiquitous, and when it gets on somebody's screen, a lot of people -- particularly younger people -- think it's theirs whether it's there legally or not. so we're facing this issue in a multitude of different ways, obviously, trying to enforce the law against the criminals who put this stuff on the web is one

thing we do, but we're also involved with education messages, dealing with the technologically as well as a whole new era of providing this content whether it's movies or music or television shows online in reasonably-priced, hassle-free ways so that people have less incentive to want to steal it in the first place. but it's a complicated problem, and it is one that has the potential of being a dagger in the heart of people creating this content in the future. so we've got to address it, but we are addressing it in a holistic way. and we need the government's help because a lot of this activity is criminal, some of it is organized crime international, takes a lot of government prosecutors, a lot of people involved in the criminal justice system to help us deal with this, also takes customs, homeland security, and so that was the purpose of the meeting yesterday. it was to try to talk about the

nature of the problem and then talk about what solutions there are out there. >> host: greg piper is the associate managing editor of the washington internet daily, he joins in the questioning. >> host: you don't have dirt in your name. >> guest: i do not have dirt. speaking of internet piracy which is now a very big focus of the motion picture industry, this is one of the more controversial provisions of the anticounterfeiting trade agreement being negotiated privately which has a lot of people worried about what provisions are going to come out of it. and one of the criticisms is it may go beyond u.s. law as far as secondary liability, what an internet service provider could be liable for them if they don't try to halt piracy on their networks, and there have been a lot of criticisms of other countries, what may happen to their legal regimes, let's say europe and canada. will this go beyond all these laws in these different

countries, and will this happen outside of congressional purview? >> guest: well, in the first place the negotiating of the anticounterfeit trade agreement is perfectly consistent with what our government has done in the past. these types of agreements, and others as well, so you get countries together and to try to deal with the issues. the primary issue in this particular agreement is the online world and how best to deal with it. you know, i can't prejudge. we met with ambassador kirk not too long ago where we talked about these issues, and this trade agreement is basically moving along like most trade agreements move along, and that trade agreement will come back to the legislatures in various countries in the world, including the u.s. congress for review. so i don't want to prejudge it. i will tell you, however, they are dealing with the issue of online piracy. that is a worldwide phenomenon. the internet does not stop ott the borders of the country, and it requires kind of everybody to be in the game to deal with

these internet sites are worldwide, they move around almost instantaneously. you close one, another opens. so every country has an interest in dealing with this particular problem, but i'm sure it's going to respect national sovereignty. it's almost unthinkable that we would pass an agreement that would create a new world order without individual countries looking at the situation. but i don't want to prejudge what it's going to look like because i've not been involve inside the negotiating of the agreement. >> host: do you think it's possible for all these regimes which have vastly different treatment of things like privacy to really come to some kind of baseline agreement that's going to be percent for your industry as far as finding people who are engaged in this activity? >> guest: well, i certainly think we can come up with a set of principles to make some of the solutions compatible. i recognize you're not going to get identical laws everywhere in the world on these points, but the problem is very serious,

internet piracy is a threat to the creative industries of every single country in the world. we're being helped on these issues by our labor unions and guilds both in the united states as well as elsewhere working with us to fight the problems because it has a direct threat on the creative process of producing books, movies, music and the like. so, you know, again, i don't want to prejudge the issue. i know that there is a community out there, you know, very, very worried about this agreement. i think that they are falsely accusing the negotiabilitiers of things that are just not accurate, and i'm comfortable that the obama administration team is doing a good job in this negotiating process. >> host: how much does the government spend to fight piracy? >> guest: well, i don't have an exact number. an appropriations bill just passed congress, i think the president just signed it or is going to sign it for additional prosecutors and other folks

helping in this process. i mean, the justice department, state governments spend a fair amount of money on enforcement of copyright infringement and counterfeiting generally. much of the work is done, however, through ourselves, through self-regulatory organizations, and we do a lot of work in the states as well. so i can't give you a precise figure. it's probably a very tiny proportion or percentage, however, of what's totally spent on law enforcement in this country. now, as we see more and more piracy into the organized crime world which our evidence is showing, a lot of the people who are doing organized criminal activities are moving into this area, then it's our hope that we can get the dollars spent up. >> host: there's a report that came out earlier this week from the information technology innovation foundation which basically said that digital piracy can be significantly halted, it's not, it's not a foregone conclusion that it's going to be unchecked, and you simply have to change your

business models, and they gave several methods for this to happen. a couple of suggestions were to go after search engines and advertising networks which make a lot of this content more visible to users to try to get them to alert users, this is not legitimate content, this is pirated or even to do some kind of agreement, let's say, with ad networks that run a lot of this advertising to give them maybe a break on future regulation that's expected against their industries in return for cutting ties to these sites. what would you think that some of these other intermediaries should do that are facilitating the revenue stream? >> guest: first of all, i think the report was an excellent report, and it highlighted the problem of digital piracy, it just presented a panoply of solutions. and there's no question there are facilitators out there, there are advertisers. you see illegitimate project on legitimate sites in which case you can use modern credit cards. mastercard, visa, american express to pay for this illegal

stuff, so it gives the impression, well, if you can use a legitimate credit card to pay for this, it must be legal in which case it's not. so going after the facilitators, the people who kind of for want of a better word aid and abet the situation should be part of the solution. i don't think the report minimized the problem. i thought the report said this is a big problem. there are just a multitude of solutions to deal with it, and we agree with that. >> host: dan glickman is chairman and ceo of the motion picture association of america. he is joining us this week on "the communicators." greg piper is with the washington internet daily, and he also is joining us on "the communicators" this week. just to wrap up this topic of ip theft and piracy, just want to read something from public knowledge and get your response. >> guest: sure. >> host: this is from art broad sky writing at the web site public knowledge.org, and this goes back to the meeting that was just held with vice president biden.

we know that big media is a source of big money for democrats. we know that biden as a member of the senate judiciary committee was favorably disposed to the creative community as many legislators are. even so, to have three cabinet officers, agency heads, studio heads, big media lobbyists representing companies which think fair use is theft and companies which want the internet service providers to spy on you all in one room not to mention nbc's chief lobbyist and the attorney general who might have to review a little deal nbc has cooking with comcast. >> guest: well, first of all, if i were them, i would never do can a release attacking the vice president of the united states and the entire cabinet of the united states. i would say you're not going to win very many friends by taking on the chief people who run our government. so i would say that if they wanted to call me the next time, i could probably help them do their release better than they just did. i mean, the fact of the matter is this is an important issue in america. the movie industry alone employs

two-and-a-half million people directly and indirectly. this is a time when our country is losing jobs all over the country. the unemployment rate is staggering, particularly with the underreporting of unemployment with respect to people who are off the rolls. i just saw this movie bringing in a specific movie called up in the air with george clooney. it's a pretty interesting movie about what the unemployed have to go through in this world. so it is perfectly appropriate for our government to meet with industries that are producing jobs and feel that they have a threat in the event that you see business models come up and develop which as the opportunity of ending that employment or reducing it significantly. so i think they're just dead wrong. i think they have the perfect opportunity to have their own meeting with all these same people, and i expect they will. but this is an ad how many numb attack. and, quite frankly, it's an attack against the leading officers of our government. they're attacking the credibility of the vice president, the secretary of

commerce, secretary of homeland security, and i just think it's dead wrong. >> host: but hollywood has had a pretty good year even in this recession right now. your box office receipts are unusually strong. it doesn't seem like people are not going to the movies. you yourself have said in the past it's a unique experience to go to a theater and watch a movie with a group of people, although it seems your agenda right now is almost more oppositional, more aggressive, more like the recording industry has been for the past few years. would you say you see threats on the horizon that maybe aren't visible at the moment, or is there some merit to people saying you're overstating the danger you're in? >> guest: the cinema is still the heart of our business, and we've had a pretty good year this year. part of it's because there's been pretty good movies, part of it is it's a great escape. it's a lot cheaper than a psychiatrist, and you leave there with a smile on your face

usually. but other parts of our business are not doing as well. the dvd business is slipping. and the online world is new, and it's difficult to know how that's going to monetize. and the online world is where digital piracy most threatens us. and there's no question that we're starting to see rosss as a -- losses as a result of piracy in those areas. so as any good business does, it looks at the positives, and it looks at the threats. john kennedy once said the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. i'm not saying the sun is totally shining now, but i don't want to see us at the abyss laying off half our work force and coming back and saying, god, we need to do something about this problem. we need to work on it now, especially now. >> host: what about your work, do you work with the tech companies who develop some of this software? >> guest: absolutely. and, in fact, all of our companies have close relationships with the technology world, with the internet service provider world. i mean, we need all these people

to work together the. often times in washington i've been in politics and in this business a long time, we tend to demonize our enemies. that was one of the problems i found with this particular release, it's kind of the typical these people are evil because they met with these people. and, you know, the fact of the matter is we do have differences of opinion with some people in parts of the world we deal with it, but what brings us together is much greater than what drives us apart. and so we are working with folks in the tech community and the isp community and the new media communities generally. >> host: dan glickman, if you could to move on to another issue, just recently -- and this is from the web site consumerist.com -- mpaa asks fcc for control of your tv's analog outputs. what is this issue about, and how would you rewrite that headline? >> guest: i would say mpaa asks fcc to give consumers new options and new ways to watch

content earlier in the distribution process. i mean, the fact of the matter is that what we've asked the fcc as part of a petition called the select bl output control petition is to the give this authority to offer first-run movies earlier in the process in a protected manner so that we can show people sooner in the distribution process the content. a lot of people don't or can't go to the movies for a variety of reasons. they may be older, senior citizens who don't want to go out. they may be people who are handicapped. they may be people with very small children who can't go out. so this is an opportunity to get the material earlier on. but to get it out earlier on if it's not in a protected format, then we're not going to do it at all because it deals with the piracy issue.

so this does not hurt any consumer whatsoever. it gives consumers who wish to offer, be offered this service the opportunity to get it, and, of course, they would pay for it like they might with a video on demand service that some people already get. so this is one of the best ways that we could get our product out to a whole variety of consumers, millions of people who right now are not able to go to the movies at all. and it can be done consistently and with preserving the basic movie experience as well. >> host: but one of the concerns about this has been that you were asking for a fairly broad permission to turn off ports on older tvs, and there's a concern that there's going to be an increasing amount of programming that is protected but is not available to people unless they pretty much upgrade their televisions. why would this not be like the government's digital transition to it's where everybody -- television where everybody had to buy a converter box?

>> guest: okay. first of all, the fcc is currently considering this proposal right now, and without going into great detail because it's rather complicated, there are protections in there against the kinds of or abuses that some of the folks have alleged. but, you know, more and more are sets. we're moving rapidly to a situation in this country where most, if not all at some point, of the sets will effectively provide the kind of ability to offer this service. so, yeah, there are some older sets that won't do can it, but those will gradually be reduced as the opportunity to buy new product gets out there, new consumer electronics product. and we're not going to operate the situation in the worst case scenario, but let's look at it this way. here we have a whole group of consumers out there that would like to see movies faster than what they currently can get them, let's say, on dvd or other kinds of things. and we're saying, okay, here's the service to do this. yeah, you'll have to pay for the

service if you want it. the fcc will contain, will have a regulatory oversight role. there are, i've talked to all sorts of groups from the handicapped to the senior citizen groups to small families groups that said, god, what a great thing it is for us. and we'll work through some of the issues that you have just raised, but that shouldn't be stopping consumers from getting all these great new options that are out there. and if that were the case, we'd never offer anything new to people because the status quo would always prevail. >> host: one of those newer options is the blu-ray high-definition format which your industry is putting a lot of faith to to recoup some of the losses, but players are expensive right now, they're not built in hardware platforms like pcs, and the prices themselves are still higher right now. they offer consumers better quality and this upcoming digital the copy option on some

titles to be able to play them on a personal player. is this the right decision right now for the film industry to basically raise the cost of getting this packaged content? >> guest: you know, ultimately, my answer would be the marketplace will make those judgments. you know, we're in a period of great experimentation in terms of new technologies and new ways to get content into people whether their home or their handheld device or other kinds of things are out there. i don't want to really comment too much on business decisions the companies will make. they will make those decisions themselves. but there's a lot of innovation out there, and the marketplace is going to produce a lot of good rewards for people. >> host: but have you traditionally seen a consumer interest in having more content available in the way of interactive features that are available on blu-ray or has the history been more that consumers want more convenience? >> guest: i would say while convenience is a big factor in people's minds, technology is changing so rapidly, the

permutations are changing so rapidly that we don't really know for sure what will be in the best interests of the consumer. they, ultimately, will decide that. so i think you have to look at this from a futurers perspective. >> host: we've got about 7, 8 minutes left in our conversation. dan glickman has been around washington and politics for a long time, he served nearly 20 years in the house of representatives from kansas, the fourth congressional district. he served about five years as secretary of agriculture, he's been the directer of the institute of politics at harvard and, in fact, started his career as president of the wichita kansas school board. >> guest: best job i had, by the way. >> host: why is that? >> guest: oh, i don't know. it was closest to the people. you had to see them all the time. >> host: well, you're leaving your position as chairman at the end of 2010. >> guest: that's correct. i will move on, and this has been a great opportunity to participate in one of the truly spectacular industries of america, the producing movies

and television shows. i mean, not only is it a big economic industry, you know, in terms of number of people we employ and the power in terms of our balance of payment surplus, but what we produce everybody loves the movies. they may not like every movie, but they love what we produce. it changes people's lives. it's also a great part of america's soft power around the world, that is that it tells the story about america. and i'll give you one example. not long ago i was overseas in china, and we were talking about the fact it's hard for us to get our product into china legally, you know? you can get a lot of illegal product there. i asked somebody, i said, what's the problem here? it wasn't anybody high up in the government, but it was somebody who knew the system and said, you know, your movies do something very interesting. most of your movies have in some way the little guy taking on the system. the system may be the government, may be his or her company, it may be some private

sector interest, it may be a relative, but they're challenging the status quo. and he says, that's what makes american movies so great. it leaves you with some hope that you can take care of your own lives in some way and not just accept everything that has. they said, in our society we're not crazy about challenging the system, you know? and we like, basically, the structure the way it is. that theme, that american theme that, you know, an average person can kind of do whatever they want to do and maybe change their lives in the process is very powerful for this country. and so it's one of the reasons why i've enjoyed being in this business for so long because what we do changes people's lives here and around the world. >> host: what's next for you? >> guest: you know, i'm not quite sure although i've spent so many years in the nonprofit world and the public service world, and my interests relate to international issues. i've been involved with food and agriculture for a long time and hunger, those issues.

you know, i guess i kind of want to see if i can save the world as the last part of my, at least my occupational life. so we'll see what happens. >> host: greg piper, next topic. >> host: let me ask you about another fcc matter which is network neutrality which is heating up right now. they are in the midst of a rulemaking on this subject of basically insuring that the networks cannot discriminate against the content that's flowing across them, and the mpaa has been opposed to these nondiscrimination rules as they're known. do you find any room for common ground on this issue, because you seem to be permanently locked in opposition to the content companies like google and skype that are worried about them losing, basically, the unfettered access they now have to their consumers and having to go through a toll the lane, as they call it. >> guest: i think it's wrong to say we're permanently opposed to

these folks. second of all, we've been working very closely with the fcc in finding common ground to work on these issues. and i think we can get that done. i would say that our biggest concern has to do with unlawful material the online. how, how we differentiate between lawful and unlawful material the and how we can make the ability to properly and constructively manage these networks which, on which people's information and content and entertainment go up and down to make sure that we can remove the unlawful material. and it could be pirated material, it could be other forms of unlawful material, pornography, other kinds of things. and at the same time protect our ability to get our product online as well. these are not absolute perspectives and principles, and my hope and my belief is we're going to be able to work out with the fcc a way to deal with

our issues and still be supportive of them. so the process is still undergoing right now, but this fcc, this chairman has given us great access. we've talked through these problems, and i'm confident i -- we can work through them. >> host: i'd like to get your take on this proposal from at&t that they are claiming would be common ground in net neutrality to basically insure that providers aren't obviously discriminating against content to, if there's a way to make the process smoother to get a better delivery to consumers at the other end, then that should be allowed, but there would not be, let's say, comcast blocking, an alternate video service that may compete with their own programming. do you see this as a way forward? >> guest: i don't want to comment on that particular proposal because i haven't studied it in depth. we do know that the internet, the web is kind of like the

railroads, the highways and the mail system of the past. it's changed the total course of the world. and it's democratized the process because everybody has says to it. so -- access to it, so, you know, obviously you want to preserve a fair and sensible and reasonable access. so we'll look at all sorts of proposals like that. i go back to the point that because our industry is so worried about the ubiquitous and overreaching nature of online theft of our product that we want to make sure whatever we end up in this process permits all of us to deal with that problem effectively. >> host: and finally, mr. glickman, president obama has appointed victoria's pa knell to be a new intellectual property czar. from your perspective as a former congressman and a member of the clinton administration, you've worked both sides of pennsylvania avenue. number one, what do you think of the appointment of so-called czars, and what do you think the effectiveness of an ip czar would be?

>> guest: first of all, i don't think that she is going to be a czar. first of all, you have statutory authority begin to certain agent -- given to certain agencies, and she's not going to have that kind of independent statutory authority. what she will, hopefully, be able to do if she's given the proper resources is to be able to help coordinate and manage the issues, elevate the concept of intellectual property protection into every single agency of government so they all belief that this is a -- believe that this is a high priority issue and work with the congress on ways to make our enforcement in dealing with intellectual property more effective and more positive. you know, she'll also probably coordinate all of the public comment, public discussion of this kind of thing within the government. it does show the congress is very good at passing this, i must say. this is, i think, a very important thing they did. it shows they believe this is a priority issue to our national economy, and it needs to be addressed at the highestel