Fifty years ago–on May 25, 1969, to be exact—United Artists walked into one of the all-time great film rating messes when it released John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy with the Motion Picture Association of America's dreaded "X–Persons under 17 not admitted." When Variety reviewed it on May 14, the movie, about a…

In the mid-1980s, a common complaint among studio film distribution executives claimed there were just too many movies. What those moguls meant was that upstart independents, fueled by easy bank lending, junk bonds, and a seemingly bottomless well of home video revenue, were crowding screens with a sudden flush of…

Remember when film ratings were supposed to be a matter of life and death? Harvey Weinstein went to war over the letter-grade assigned to movies like Bully, and used the ensuing controversy to sell them. Anti-smoking activists clamored for an R on every cigarette scene. United States Senators deliberated for days over…

Proving that if you pay your dues literally, your pals will show up to have your back, the Motion Picture Association of America and Netflix today warned of “the chilling fear of litigation” as they filed court documents supporting FX and Ryan Murphy in their legal battle with Olivia De Havilland over the Oscar…

After six years as head of the lobbying arm of major Hollywood studios, Christopher Dodd is stepping down as chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America. The organization announced today that the former U.S. senator will exit his position as CEO on September 4 and from his position as chairman at the end of…

The Office of the United States Trade Representative has released the 2016 Special 301 Report on the global state of intellectual property rights protection and enforcement. This is the final such report that will be released during the Obama Administration. The annual review looked at 73 trading partners, placing 34…

A New Zealand court has ruled that Megaupload.com co-founder Kim Dotcom and three of the site’s other co-founders are eligible for extradition to the U.S. to stand trial on charges of copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering, effectively bringing Dotcom’s nearly four-year battle to evade U.S…

Online movie and TV pirates are becoming craftier — necessitating a “focused, strategic U.S. policy” — the Motion Picture Association of America says in a filing to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released today. The trade group is helping the USTR to determine its fourth Notorious Markets List…

Just over three months after the Motion Picture Association of America  won an important legal victory finding file-sharing service Hotfile and its founder Anton Titov liable for copyright infringement, the site today took a fatal double blow. A federal court in South Florida on Tuesday awarded the studios and the…

As its war on piracy rages on, the MPAA has picked Steven Fabrizio to be its new legal general. The senior partner in the Washington DC office of Jenner & Block today was named Senior EVP and Global General Counsel for the movie industry group. "As the MPAA's new Global General Counsel, he will continue to protect the…

Three weeks before a copyright infringement trial was set to begin, filesharing site isoHunt has agreed to shut down and pay out $110 million in a settlement to several Hollywood studios. The deal was proposed to a federal judge in a joint filing by the defendants as well as plaintiffs Columbia, Disney, Paramount…

Nearly two years and a half years after first filing their suit on behalf of several studios, the MPAA today scored a victory against file-sharing service Hotfile. A federal court in Florida has found the site and its boss Anton Titov liable for copyright infringement. Today is the first time a U.S. court has ruled…