Posted on 07/08/2006 9:24:52 PM PDT by BenLurkin
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Sanitizing movies on DVD or VHS tape violates federal copyright laws, and several companies that scrub films must turn over their inventory to Hollywood studios, an appeals judge ruled.
Editing movies to delete objectionable language, sex and violence is an "illegitimate business" that hurts Hollywood studios and directors who own the movie rights, said U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch in a decision released Thursday in Denver.
"Their (studios and directors) objective ... is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," the judge wrote. "There is a public interest in providing such protection."
Matsch ordered the companies named in the suit, including CleanFlicks, Play It Clean Video and CleanFilms, to stop "producing, manufacturing, creating" and renting edited movies. The businesses also must turn over their inventory to the movie studios within five days of the ruling.
"We're disappointed," CleanFlicks chief executive Ray Lines said. "This is a typical case of David vs. Goliath, but in this case, Hollywood rewrote the ending. We're going to continue to fight."
CleanFlicks produces and distributes sanitized copies of Hollywood films on DVD by burning edited versions of movies onto blank discs. The scrubbed films are sold over the Internet and to video stores.
As many as 90 video stores nationwide -- about half of them in Utah -- purchase movies from CleanFlicks, Lines said. It's unclear how the ruling may effect those stores.
The controversy began in 1998 when the owners of Sunrise Family Video began deleting scenes from "Titanic" that showed a naked Kate Winselt.
The scrubbing caused an uproar in Hollywood, resulting in several lawsuits and countersuits.
Directors can feel vindicated by the ruling, said Michael Apted, president of the Director's Guild of America.
"Audiences can now be assured that the films they buy or rent are the vision of the filmmakers who made them and not the arbitrary choices of a third-party editor," he said.
Yes, they can. Stores everywhere around the world do the same thing on a daily basis. They buy raw materials, create something from it, then re-sell it. It is a fundemental principle of business.
Do they own the DVD I just bought at Walmart?
The owner gets to determine what happens to these movies. You can't just take someone else's work, screw around with it, and remarket it.
But can I screw around with a copy I purchased at retail if I don't resell it? Can I pay someone else to screw around with the copy I purchased for me?
The company is profiting off of it. And they don't have the permission to do it. If you do it on your own, that falls under fair use, but you can't go and make changes to copyrighted materials and distribute or sell them. Its a property rights issue.
It's a murky question. I think ClearPlay is on more solid legal ground -- all they do is provide information, telling consumers which scenes they might find objectionable. Then they, or someone else, provide hardware that uses that information at the user's request.
What they did was illegal. They should have helped their customers procure a new license for every copy they distributed by buying a clean copy each time they sold an edited version. Then it would have probably been legal - they would then be just providing a service for the customer who legally purchased the movie but wanted it edited for their own private purposes.
And that's the joy of Federalism. You buy the copy you like, let the Mormons buy the copy they like. It doesn't harm you (or the studios either by the way). You don't like their version, they don't like yours. So what? Live and let live.
Nice example. I like it!
Copyright laws exist for the same reason patent laws exist: to protect the work of the individual and the company that risks cash on producing it.
Ands you missed the point that the copyright holder has already given permission for the exact same cuts to be made in the TV and airline versions of these movies.
It's a Wonderful Life bombed big time when it came out. The studio was scared to death of it. People thought it was Marxist because of its handling of the Mr. Potter character.
Then why is this company doing it again without permission? Why not buy the TV or airline version?
So I can't underline text in a college text book. I can't draw a Hitler mustache on the photo of Hillary Clinton on the cover of her book? Where is the law that says this?
If you wrote a book and someone decided to publish their version of your book and profit from it, would you allow that? Especially if they were cutting into your profit?
They aren't "publishing" a version. They are simply making edits to a version already purchased. It actually increases profits because every copy sold this way is a copy that would be unsold otherwise.
Following your logic, it should be illegal for anyone to modify a vehicle after they buy it from the dealer. Do you think it should be illegal to add an aftermarket radio, change body panels, interior, engine mods, or any of the thousands of other things people do to their cars?
No, a car doesn't have a copyright, its not intellectual property. Come on, you should know better than that.
It wasn't clear in the article.
Then I disagree with the ruling. There is no difference if a person bought a movie and asked me to edit out the bad words for them, and what they did. So I see no reason why Cleanfilms can't do it for a living. Maybe it will get overturned on appeal, because anyone is entitled to edit their own copies of works they purchased for own use, so why not entrust someone else to do it?
Renting those version out may be a different story, though. But purchased copies for own use, I can't see how this ruling is logical.
You might also want to look up the Copyright Term Extension Act aka The Mickey Mouse Copyright Act. Disney actually had the copyright law changed to keep Mickey from falling into public domain.
No, a car doesn't have a copyright, its not intellectual property. Come on, you should know better than that.
The name of the car and certain components as well as features have copyrighted names.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.