"File sharing causes tremendous financial loss to the movie business, untold hardship to support workers, and costs thousands of jobs."

(Quote source: Jack Valenti)

Oh, glorious awesomeness...

Boing Boing reports on an event of mad genius. Jack Valenti, president of the MPAA, was on his way in to the Supreme Court hearings regarding Grokster, one of those evil P2P file-sharing/copyright-infringing apps that Valenti says are going to destroy the movie industry.

Someone from the EFF got him to autograph a Betamax tape. And not just a blank Betamax tape, but a Betamax tape containing an "unauthorized" recording of Woody Allen's Sleeper.

You may recall Mr. Valenti's testimony in the 1982 "Betamax Hearings" before Congress, in which he predicted that the videocassette recorder would destroy the TV and movie industries: "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." Because, you know, they could be used to duplicate copyrighted material.