Michael Smarinsky, Attorney

Michael Smarinsky received a Bachelor of Arts degree and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1974.  In 1978, he received his Juris Doctor degree at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

From 1978 to 1981 Mr. Smarinsky was an associate at Wyman, Bautzer, Christensen, Kuchel & Silbert, and from 1981 to 1983 he was an associate at Lipofsky and Lande.

From 1983 to 2005 Mr. Smarinsky was an attorney at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios ("MGM"), with his ultimate position there being Executive Vice President, Corporate and Governmental Affairs (reporting directly to the Chairman of the Board).  At MGM, Mr. Smarinsky was the lead attorney in negotiating significant real estate transactions, major credit facilities, licensing and merchandising agreements, technology license agreements, film processing agreements, and many other transactions.  Mr. Smarinsky was also in charge of MGM's content protection and government affairs activities, and has worked directly on legislative and regulatory matters with U.S. senators and congressmen and senior members of the Executive Branch; Mr. Smarinsky played a key role in the drafting, introduction and passage of the 2005 Family Entertainment and Copyright Act.  Mr. Smarinsky also was in charge of MGM's overall relationship with the Motion Picture Association of America (the trade group comprised of the major motion picture studios), and participated in many of the Motion Picture Association of America's activities in helping to establish technology standards for digital media.

Mr. Smarinsky is a past member of the Board of Directors of the California Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Directors of the Motion Picture Association of America, and the DVD Copy Control Association (the entity in charge of licensing the CSS copy protection technology for DVDs, which body has been at the center of many key issues confronting the information technology, consumer electronics, and motion picture industries).

Mr. Smarinsky and his wife are supporters of the Autry National Center in Los Angeles and are active in Families with children from China.