Salaries have also been cut, so former CEO Dan Glickman received $1.11 million instead of $1.65 million, while company president Robert Pisano, who resigned in 2011, got $1.09 million in his last year at MPAA. Beside that the MPAA decided to save some money on law firms, so they paid them only $5.6 million while they got $13 million a year before. The MPAA also cut salaries for all their employees, but still managed to maintain their lobbying budget at $4.6 million. They even found some extra money to make a donation to the Democratic Attorney Generals Association. Can you guess who is behind that organization? Beau Biden, son of a Vice President Joe Biden one of the people alleged to have been responsible for the Megaupload take down.

Even though they obviously had a rough time on the financial side, MPAA managed to make some significant successes last year, they had a big impact on the Megaupload case; also in the UK they played an important role in the conviction of Anton Vickerman from SurfTheChannel.com, and NinjaVideo admins in the US. After SOPA/PIPA/CISPA and all other laws were rejected, the Hollywood studios started to cut their budget which may be the beginning of the end for MPAA.

[Ed – Many have felt that the MPAA and RIAA do nothing but hinder the industry. Their heavy handed tactics no longer help artists and, if anything, are becoming more of a liability to the people that are trying to put out better music and movies. As we see more services like Megabox pop up on the internet to provide people with direct access to artists’ music while making sure the artists get the majority of the money for their work we expect to see both the MPAA and RIAA continue to decline in revenue and importance to the industry they claim to represent. The decline in revenue is one of the motivators behind their renewed attack on piracy around the globe; both agencies are trying to show just how important they are to help maintain their revenue.]

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