Dear Friends,

The air at CreativeFuture HQ in Los Angeles has turned to a frigid sixty degrees, and while we shiver to our Californian bones, we know that the turn in weather means the holidays are finally here. As we eagerly await the new year, we’re preparing our wish lists with the hope that we’ll end up on the nice list this year.

CreativeFuture CEO Ruth Vitale is wishing for the same thing she’s wished for the past three years – a pet raccoon. We hope she gets it, but we’re not sure if our office lease will allow it.

Senior Writer Bryan Alkemeyer needs Santa to bring him a new back, but he may not get it if he keeps leaving out VEGAN milk and cookies instead of the good shit!

EVP Brett Williams is asking Mr. Claus for a new muscle car – he got stuck driving a rented Ford Mustang after someone sideswiped his usual car. Brett’s been chasing the high of driving some pure-blood American muscle ever since. (Though, he would never admit that.)

The rest of us are patiently waiting for the big man in red to bring us a future where creatives no longer have to worry about watching their work be stolen by pirates. But if he can’t swing it, we’ll be here in 2025 to keep the fight going ourselves.

We received one present early this year! On December 5, CreativeFuture CEO Ruth Vitale was celebrated for her “Excellence in Creativity” at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center’s annual IP Champions Reception, alongside Senator Mazie Hirono, Congressman Kevin Kiley, Merck & Co. Director of Global Security Operations Jim Mancuso, and Deputy French Customs Attaché Florian Larée.

And a dear friend and wonderful human, Congressman Steny Hoyer, presented Ruth with her award. For the past 11 years, Ruth and the CreativeFuture team have been fighting on behalf of our nation’s millions of creatives who make the entertainment we love. We are grateful for the recognition!

As is tradition, please enjoy our yearly holiday letter – full of updates on the CF family and some adorable pet photos.

In 2024, Brett Williams, Executive Vice President of External Affairs, spent way too much time following the election, including during our interestingly-timed trip to D.C. with Doris Kearns Goodwin 10 days after the June Presidential debate, at a time when no one could speak of … anything else.

Now, hopefully, we can look ahead to a 2025 without talk of politics. Wait, why are you laughing?

While not ensconced in politics for work or personal interest, to save his sanity, Brett spent time traveling. He went to Palm Springs, West Marin, and Los Olivos. Further afield, Brett went to two places he had never been before and loved both: Mallorca and Sicily. All of those travels were welcome respites from the thrum of noise we all have in our digital lives these days.

With co-workers Ruth and JC, Brett made a day trip to Las Vegas to experience Darren Aronofsky’s movie Postcard from Earth in the Sphere, which was spectacular (Las Vegas notwithstanding). Brett thoroughly enjoyed a film that we will be bringing to D.C. for a Creative Rights Caucus event in 2025, Twisters. (And, in the same vein, Brett loved The Fall Guy). So far this Oscar® season, Brett has enjoyed Anora and A Real Pain, both great movies that fall into the category of “they don’t make movies like this anymore.” Over the holidays, Brett is looking forward to listening to the new Serial podcast, The Good Whale, and bingeing season two of Squid Game.

As always, Brett is grateful for family and friends, especially his two pugs, his two nephews, and his partner Rob. As an aside, in a banner year for pugs, we are proud of Vito’s wins on the show circuit this year.

Here is a photo of Brett’s nephews with their pug cousins!

Our imagination may be playing tricks on us, but we think we have observed some changes in Community Outreach Consultant Adam Krentzman and his dog, Charlie. One year ago, the forlorn Alaskan husky leapt into Adam’s car. Now, they have started to look alike.

Has Charlie learned the art of disguise from Adam, our not-so-secret “agent”? Or has Adam grown a winter undercoat? We know one thing for sure: our antique rugs are always covered in hair after Adam and Charlie have been at the office. We wish one of them would learn to vacuum!

This fall, Adam took his first trip to Australia for a very exciting reason: He’s making a movie! To be more specific, Adam is one of the producers on R.U.R., a new adaptation of an early 20th-century play about a rebellion at the Rossum’s Universal Robots factory. The film is directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City), whom Adam represented for 20 years at Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

If you follow CreativeFuture, you will soon be able to see sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with the filmmakers. We can’t wait to share them with you on social media!

We learned last year that Coordinator Connor Leak was magic when he successfully contested a parking ticket and caused an orchid to rebloom. We regularly see more signs of wizardry in Connor’s scheduling and event planning, but we have yet to evaluate his skill at the guitar. Connor says that learning to play has been like using a computer keyboard in another alphabet.

In addition to practicing guitar, Connor has enjoyed attending music festivals, hiking, and taking trips to the beach. At home, Connor and his roommates are training a new dog. Unfortunately, certain important rules of household etiquette continue to escape their canine companion, who is “dumber than a doorknob,” as Connor bluntly yet fondly stated. (Where did he learn to talk that way? You know it wasn’t from us, because the word “fuck” is missing.) But what the dog lacks in intelligence, he makes up for by being cute.

Content Producer Nim Kaufman moved into a new apartment in 2024, a big upgrade over his previous home which was essentially a storage unit with a sink.

Nim now lives with two birds and a princess of a cat, Cleo, and expects even more small critters to come into his life in 2025 – both of his sisters are expecting children! It is almost time for the office to start calling him Uncle Nim.

Nim spent his 2024 travelling around the country for weddings, bingeing The Penguin on Max, weeping in the theater during the ending of The Wild Robot, and packing his snowboard gear for what is sure to be a great season up in the California mountains. Perhaps Cleo and her bird friends will make the trip, too!

In 2024, Senior Writer Bryan Alkemeyer had to do an awful lot of adulting, and he came to a conclusion: taking on new personal responsibilities is NOT good for your back.

To refresh his memory of the year, Bryan flipped through his calendar. (Yes, Bryan is a technophobe who keeps a paper planner and types wearing a tinfoil hat.) In March, Bryan sold a house for a relative in another state. In his notes for that week, Bryan wrote paperwork nightmare next to hip pain.

While doing physical therapy, Bryan served jury duty, went to the dentist, developed an investment strategy, and moved to a new apartment. Now, since it’s time for him to have a little fun, he wants to transfer all his dry goods from the manufacturer’s bags to mason jars.

A bright spot in Bryan’s year – besides hanging out with us at CreativeFuture, of course – was playing board games with family and friends. (Most of these are ALSO commemorated in his paper calendar.) For instance, Bryan ran several sessions of a collaborative storytelling game for his creative friends in LA. Bryan was also very excited to try Arcs, the latest release from Bryan’s favorite indie design studio. He may put the game on his Christmas list, feeling optimistic that more joy could heal his back.

Last year, we set some new expectations for Senior Communications Director Davis Read. As you may recall, we instructed him to increase his rate of progress through the anime series One Piece by 200% and to practice German for 500 days a year. Since Davis had finally stopped growing during 2023, we also told him to bring his extraordinary height down to below 10 feet. So, how do you think Davis spent his free time during 2024?

Well, our office giant changed his diet after moving to a new apartment in Koreatown. Now, he is eating his way through the neighborhood, gorging on delicious fare from some of the best restaurants in LA. Local chefs must plan for weeks to keep up with his appetite, and experts are forecasting national shortages of key Korean ingredients, such as kochukaru (chili powder) and chamgeereum (sesame seed oil). Savory feasts have not helped Davis to reduce his height, but so far, they have not caused him to grow any taller, either. What a relief!

Recently, Davis adopted an adorable fluffy kitten named Martini. Generally, Martini does not eat Korean takeout or leftovers, which are always stocked in the fridge. Martini prefers his wet food, which he insists on having at 7am sharp every day. When Martini isn’t eating, he takes naps, drags cat toys across the apartment, and watches crows at the window. While we approve of these activities, we expect Martini to report to our pet-friendly office once per week in 2025.

JC Taylor, our Senior Vice President of Policy and Communications, likes a friendly competition, but he may have met his match this year. After setting intramural office records for golf, tennis, ping pong, and moviegoing – which he STILL approaches like a varsity sport – JC tried his hand at a new challenge: making a cucumber salad. Like so many others who had been inspired by the viral trend on TikTok, JC soon found himself in the ER because he accidentally shaved off his finger with a mandoline. Though he took photos, we decided not to include them here (although Ruth is very upset that she was overruled!).

Although the doctors saved (most of) his finger, it swelled to the size of a football by the time JC returned home. The blood-spattered kitchen looked like a murder scene, but JC had a task to do before cleaning it. JC threw the mandoline away, admitting defeat for the first and, most likely, final time in his life.

As JC reflected, he would want every finger to finish his spec script for Paddington IV, starring himself as the beloved bear’s evil twin, Baddington. In addition, keeping every body part would increase JC’s enjoyment on future vacations. He hadn’t realized it at the time, but he really appreciated having all 10 of his fingers when he visited Hawaii with his friends. Finally, JC thought of his pet cat, Mosquito. Perhaps JC could still take 600 photos of Mosquito every year without a finger or two. We’ll just have to see in 2025.

When Chief Executive Officer Ruth Vitale was asked for updates from her year, she was busy updating her address book, an endless task thanks to her Macbook’s spinning pinwheel of death. Remembering the year was nearly over, Ruth looked up and swore. She was not ready for Christmas, nor was she in a seasonally appropriate mood, so our writer would just have to invent a pleasant fiction! But the truth is always more interesting when it comes to Ruth, our writer knew. He stuck closely to the facts instead.

Ruth braved many circles of hell in 2024. Some were realms of mundane experience, like the airport, shopping malls, and construction zones on Wilshire Boulevard. Others were ruled by major tech corporations, too loathsome to be named here. The most soul-wrenching of these ordeals came when Ruth had to say goodbye to her dog Bear. He certainly knew how to drive her crazy, but he was loved, and he will be missed.

Despite the trials of 2024, Ruth also had much to feel grateful for, particularly her friends and allies from the creative community. Taking comfort from her work, Ruth felt blessed that CreativeFuture continues to make a difference in the fight against online piracy. She also found comfort in the theater – she saw The Wild Robot twice and wept! She and Nim should go see Beaches together!

Fortunately, Ruth’s grief for Bear has been eased somewhat by the continuing company of her other dog, North. Ruth has also delighted in admiring a bobcat that recently began visiting her backyard. If you know Ruth as well as we do, then you won’t be surprised to hear that she is well on the way to becoming the bobcat’s friend!

Well friends, that’s all for 2024. Enjoy your holidays with friends and family, and try not to miss us too much during the break. We’ll catch you in the new year with our usual rants, tirades, and general grievances against tech bros and digital pirates.

Happy Holidays!