Dear MPAA and movie production companies,

Please make movies that do not suck.
Box office and DVD sales are not affected by piracy.
In reality, most films today aren't worth watching.
At all.
Even for free.

I recently found an amusing take on the MPAA secret HD-DVD encryption processing key mess. At heart is the MPAA's claim that a single number is legally protected by the DMCA. Nobody can know about it, talk about it, copy it, store it, repeat it, etc. Anything that messes with their number is off limits.

Hmm.

If that's true (please suspend reality and go along with it), then it is also legally protected for me to have my own special number that's protected by the DMCA, too, and www.freedom-to-tinker.com helped me out.

Here's my super-secret, don't-copy-this-or-I'll-SUE-YOU number:

D4 C1 96 CA 0F 69 E5 42 4D 26 B8 2A E9 59 F9 A7

So www.freedom-to-tinker.com will generate a new number, just for you, and then use that number to encrypt a copyrighted haiku. So what? By encrypting that haiku, your number is then considered a circumvention device capable of decrypting the haiku without your permission. But then immediately, the site owner gives all rights to you to decrypt the haiku. That means the DMCA should now make it illegal for anyone to mess with, copy, publish, etc. your special number.

Stupid, isn't it?

The whole situation is made even more ridiculous when you look at the landscape of cinema today: movie viewership isn't down because of theft or piracy, it's down because most movies suck.

This nonsense with the MPAA shutting down websites (for printing their secret number) is just silly, and it's only fanning the flames. Sites like 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63.com (whoa! could that be the MPAA's super-secret number? as a website name?!) are popping up with huge lists of other sites, all of them are determined to print that number, just to be a thorn in the MPAA's butt.

(Please, just try making movies that do not suck....)