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.
This was a pretty clear cut case. The copiers would be extremely foolish to pursue it. If they were smart they'd say, Okay -- let's join forces and do it legally. How much is this gonna cost?
I am going to bed as it is late.
Thanks for the back and forth and may you have a good day, err today.
You too, I think I'm gonna do a dead celebrity tour, so many stars, so many cemetaries.
I have to get to work in a little while..but, let me say, I completely understand how some of the recent Hollywood stuff is offensive to a lot of people. But the fact of the matter is, Hollywood isn't conspiring to corrupt morals or bring down the country.
Movies are large investments that now require global markets. In order to earn their money back they have to put a lot of butts in seats around the world. And that means catering to countries that are both more persmissive and restrictive than the U.S.
Take care...I'm off, too.
I am a major film geek, but I haven't seen a film in a theatre in a year, nothing intrests me. I may go see Clerks II and A Scanner Darkly, but I still got dozens of DVD's I haven't cracked open. Mostly indie and foreign stuff.
Watching "Bananas" on cable now, a classic that is always funny.
Last movie I saw that I actually liked was The Aviator. There's not a lot out there these days.
That was the last film I saw in a theatre!
I agree, not much, I'd kill to have a revival theatre here with some old Hitchcock or Kurosawa flicks.
Great explanation that Nino himself would be proud of.
There's no legal issue here other than the willfulness of a judge.
Technically, no you're not, but it's unlikely anyone would bother prosecuting you for it.
If yes, then I also have the right to contract with someone else to alter my personal copy for me.
Except that you're not allowed to.
If no, the the next step is to outlaw DVD players with mute, FF, and skip scene buttons.
Invalid comparison. Muting, fast forwarding, or skipping a scene while playing a DVD does not *alter* the DVD.
Your only option is to turn it off and take out the disk.
No, there's also the option of not trying to pretend that muting the playback of your DVD violates any law, since it doesn't.
I know that sound nuts, but that is where this idiotic drek will lead us.
No, it isn't. There is a clear line between turning down the sound or skipping chapters on your playback and actually producing an altered copy of a copyrighted work.
And before you ask, yes, it would most likely be legal to produce a special DVD player that would skip certain sections during the playback of an UNALTERED DVD movie whenever it was played.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet (although I haven't read all 600+ replies in the thread) is that one of the key concerns in cases like this is that the "unauthorized versions" (i.e. altered copies) of films will give untold numbers of viewers a misleading impression of the director's work. "Cut" versions don't just cut out certain "objectionable" sights or sounds, they inevitably chop out parts of scenes or dialog which can leave plot holes, unexplained gaps in exposition, clumsy scene transitions, etc. etc. I think we've all been familiar with how "choppy" some films get when they end up on TV after numerous cuts for reasons of content or to fit into a timeslot, and that's when such cuts are done by professional editors -- the cuts made by the unauthorized "video cleanup" shops are even less likely to be done in a smooth or reasonable fashion.
So the filmmakers are rightly concerned about unknown numbers of chopped copies of unknown quality floating around until the end of time, giving untold numbers of viewers a false impression of the film. If this practice became widespread, it would be even worse, thus the need to nip it in the bud. Otherwise, lots of people who had seen nothing but a hacked version of the film would end up talking about it on the internet, and for example badmouthing it as being full of plot holes or hard to follow or choppy or poorly edited, etc., when actually those flaws weren't present in the original film, and were the fault of the "chop-shop" that tried to "clean it up". In short, unauthorized versions have a big potential to reflect badly on the studio and the filmmakers. Even people who realize they're watching an "edited" version will still tend to blame the original filmmakers if they find that the edited version they watched seems to suck. And the problem is compounded by the fact that many people who end up watching the film (say, at a friend's house or after buying a copy secondhand and not paying much attention to the "edited" label) won't even fully realize that it *is* an edited version. They'll just know that they watched "Titanic, by James Cameron", and give little if any thought to the fact that someone else had been fiddling with it before they watched it.
The filmmaker's position, like that of any artist in any medium, is that they made their work the best they could, take it or leave it -- it should be judged as is, and not reworked and represented by some other artist (or non-artist) who might have a different vision, nor do they want various "versions" floating around that they have no say in nor control over which might give viewers a false impression of the artist's actual product.
The only thing this decison will do is transfer business from cleanflicks to companies that offer filtering software like clearplay.
You've always had the option to tune out what you consider to be perversion or immorality. There may be films that you consider immoral, which I consider to be great, or vice versa. And what's appropriate for an adult is not necessarily appropriate for a child. That's why we all make our own decisions, and do not try to do that for others.
And made the right decision, according to copyright law.
False. Television has always sought and recieved the permission of the copyright holder. Whether that was the artist/creator or not is not germain to this discussion.
The reason it is germaine is that it was claimed that
directors, actors and the like are acting as the aggrieved party in this case, when in fact their works are endlessly altered; I wasn't making a legal point.
The question of legality is moot in any case, since, as I said, Clearplay does the same thing in effect and is completely and uncontroversially legal-- and more power to them.
I agree on both counts.
I looked other articles.
It is not "just editing the content". There are multiple issues but central is the fact that in renting the video as a new product the court views it similar to the sampling copyright issue. They are taking an existing product and converting it to something else THEN renting it without compensation to the original owner.
If they had sold it, it would be akin to an auto customizer who buys a car, modifies it, and then sells the entire car out. But that is "one" for "one" zero sum.
The issue is not the artistic integrity. That is irrelevant, the issue is the rights to sell the content for modification.
I am curious how much business the studios are loosing because they are NOT providing this service. I have no ox in this competition.
I think we have a fair use conflict here and the bottom line is the courts in the past have not been so quick to allow the "adhesion contracts" that software makers try to push. (ie AFTER the box is open and cant be rerturned and after the envolope is opened and can't be resealed, THEN you get the little "you must agree or else" checkbox)
A similar case that failed was a car maker trying to enforce an effort to go by a warranty that was "adhesion" modified in the manual in the gove box AFTER all the paperwork had been signed and sealed and delivered. (you expected to read the manual's new warranty clauses AFTER you signed but BEFORE you drove off the lot.)
People routinely edit copyrighted material when they make their own mix tapes or break up copyrighted albums to take the few good songs and put them on their ipods.
Taken to its logical extreme hollywood would ban the FF button because it allows you to fast forward scenes which break up the "artistic integrity" of the film by FF editing on the fly.
The real issue here is the financial damage. Did they have actual contracts for rental of the videos? IF they did not have actual rental agreements for commercial rental then the rest of the debate is moot and we never get to the editing part.
I don't know that pornography IS art, but I know that the perception of pornography is often subjective. That's why the Supreme Court based the test on community standards.
"Pornography certainly seems to be at epidemic proportions thorough all levels of society."
That's not my perception, because I am not often exposed to it. I'd have to go looking for it, which I generally don't. Then again, we may have different definitions of pornography.
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.