Village Roadshow Ditches Copyright Forum To Dodge ‘Crazies’

Ah, Graham Burke. The co-CEO of Village Roadshow certainly knows how to put things indelicately. In an email to Communications Manager Malcolm Turnbull, the Village Roadshow CEO refused to engage in public anti-piracy discussions, citing a concern over “crazies”.

Burke and Turnbull were in correspondence over a proposed copyright legislation forum to be held next month. The forum is part of the government’s move to crackdown on copyright infringement.

In an email to the Communications Minister obtained by ZDNet, Burke firmly declined an invitation to any roundtable event on copyright infringement.

“…these Q and A style formats are judged by the noise on the night and given the proposed venue I believe this will be weighted by the crazies,” Burke wrote at one point.

We think the forum may be saner without your voice, Mr Burke.

Burke is no stranger to controversial opinions on piracy. He’s gone to the mat several times about film piracy in Australia. Something he believes is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of jobs if left unchecked.

In an interview with Gizmodo back in June, Burke made it clear he’s at odds with major ISPs like iiNet and web giants like Google over proposed solutions to online piracy.

[ZDNet]