Petteri Pyyny
7 Mar 2002 8:27
MPAA's CEO and president Jack Valenti told during ShoWest, an annual movie theatre operators' gathering, that 2001 was Hollywood's most successful year since 1959 in terms of moviegoers and best year ever in movie ticket profits.
20 films reached "magic" $100M mark and five films reached $200M mark in movie ticket sales in last year. Valenti called last year the "greatest box office year in film history," with total receipts of $8.41 billion.
Now, this is obviously great for movie industry, but it makes one to wonder why MPAA and studios it represents whines to congress, media and U.S. senate how movie piracy is killing the industry? Companies such as Disney are trying to push hardware-level restrictions for content copying which ultimately would limit so-called fair use terms dramatically in U.S.