30 Facts About MPAA

MPAA created the Motion Picture Export Association to promote American films abroad by opposing production company monopolies in other countries.

For three years, the MPAA operated without a president while studio executives searched for a replacement.

MPAA appointed Jack Valenti, former aide to President Lyndon Johnson, as president of the MPAA in 1966.

In 1975, Valenti established the Film Security Office, an anti-piracy division at the MPAA, which sought to recover unauthorized recordings of films to prevent duplication.

MPAA led lobbying efforts that resulted in $400 million in federal tax incentives for the film industry, and supported a law which created federal oversight of anti-piracy efforts.

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MPAA traveled to China in 2011 in an effort to encourage the Chinese government to both crack down on piracy and further open its film market.

In 2011, the MPAA supported the passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act .

In 2012, the MPAA launched the Diversity and Multicultural Outreach program, as part of an effort to increase diversity in the television and film industry both through employment and representation on screen.

In June 2017, the MPAA supported the launch of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a coalition of entertainment companies, including the six major studios, Netflix and Amazon, that would draw on the MPAA's resources in an effort to reduce online piracy through research and legal efforts.

In 1968, the MPAA established the Code and Rating Administration, or CARA, which began issuing ratings for films exhibited and distributed commercially in the United States to help parents determine what films are appropriate for their children.

In 2006, the film This Film Is Not Yet Rated alleged that the MPAA gave preferential treatment to member studios during the process of assigning ratings, as well as criticizing the rating process for its lack of transparency.

Original MPAA members were the "Big Eight" film studios: Paramount Pictures, Fox Film, Loews, Universal Pictures, and United Artists, followed by Warner Bros.

In 1986, the MPAA asked Congress to pass a law that would require VCRs to come equipped with a chip to prevent them from making copies.

In late 2004, the MPAA changed course and filed lawsuits in a concerted effort to address copyright infringement on a number of large online file-sharing services, including BitTorrent and eDonkey.

The following year, the MPAA expanded its legal actions to include lawsuits against individuals who downloaded and distributed copyrighted material via peer-to-peer networks.

MPAA played a role in encouraging the Swedish government to conduct a raid of the Pirate Bay file-sharing website in May 2006.

In 2013, the Center for Copyright Information unveiled the Copyright Alert System, a system established through an agreement between the MPAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, and five of the USA's largest internet service providers.

In 2016, the MPAA reported Putlocker as one of the "top 5 rogue cyberlocker services" to the Office of the United States Trade Representative as a major piracy threat; the website was then blocked in the United Kingdom.

In 2004, the MPAA began using the slogan "You can click, but you can't hide".

Also in 2004, the MPAA partnered with the Federation Against Copyright Theft and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore to release a trailer that was shown before films in theaters equating piracy with car theft.

In 2005, the MPAA commissioned a study to examine the effects of file sharing on film industry profitability.

In 2008, the MPAA revised the percentage of loss due to college students down to 15 percent, citing human error in the initial calculations of this figure.

In 2015, theaters began airing the MPAA's "I Make Movies" series, an ad campaign intended to combat piracy by highlighting the stories of behind-the-scenes employees in the film and television industry.

MPAA itself has been accused of copyright infringement on multiple occasions.

In 2007, the creator of a blogging platform called Forest Blog accused the MPAA of violating the license for the platform, which required that users link back to the Forest Blog website.

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The MPAA had used the platform for its own blog, but without linking back to the Forest Blog website.

The MPAA subsequently took the blog offline, and explained that the software had been used on a test basis and the blog had never been publicized.

Also in 2007, the MPAA released a software toolkit for universities to help identify cases of file sharing on campus.

In 2006, the MPAA admitted having made illegal copies of This Film Is Not Yet Rated — an act which Ars Technica explicitly described as hypocrisy and which Roger Ebert called "rich irony".

The MPAA subsequently claimed that it had the legal right to copy the film despite this being counter to the filmmaker's explicit request, because the documentary's exploration of the MPAA's ratings board was potentially a violation of the board members' privacy.