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.
So cite the law that says I can't sell to a third person a book in which I have marked certain words out.
There is no difference. For example, part of my company involves rescue equipment. For some specialized products, we buy an original item, it is modified, and then resold. We are not violating any laws since we are not creating a protected item from scratch and are not depriving the original manufacturer of profit. There is no difference between this and motion pictures.
It is a violation of copyright law. And yes, copyright law does, in fact, exist.
I guess you could try to pass it off as being "damaged" - a la a used college textbook that has highlighting and notations in it - although that was not your intent, as you admitted here.
Of course, he has yet to cite any such law, just his opinion. Opinions and $4.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Upgrading equipment and altering a movie aren't the same thing. If you presented yourself as the original developer of the item, however, and put it into production violating any patents, you probably would be in trouble, but again, that is an entirely different issue.
Wow. So in the privacy of my own home, I cannot mark in a book I bought. I cannot splice a VHS tape that broke lest a millisecond of material drop out without the studio's permission. I cannot deface any IP that is not my own.
The truth is, none of that is true. For you have never heard of "fair use."
Irrelevant. That falls under patent protection.
Law is not opinion, and we have cited copyright an enormous amount of times here. If I'm misinterpreting the application of copyrights, then state how I am doing so. So far you won't even admit copyrights even exist. You are simply making things up as you go along.
I already told you you can do whatever the hell you want with it, you can't sell it. Stick with the topic at hand. Copyright laws. IP addresses are not copyrighted, nor are they there for you to do whatever you want with them if you aren't the owner.
You are now diliberately chaning the context of the discussion and refuting a point that was not made. I thought this was supposed to be a serious discussion, but it is becoming increasingly apparent you are just playing games..."let's see how much I can confuse them and get a kick out of how they respond." Are you 12, or is that high balling it? Find something better to do with your time.
Fair use is an entirely different kettle of fish, and has NOTHING to do with the subject matter you initially brought up.
You're either deliberately obtuse or ignorant of Copyright Laws.
Please explain how it is different.
No. The purpose of copyright and patent law, as laid out in the US Constitution, is to reserve exclusive rights for a limited time so as to encourage the useful arts. Profit is one of the reasons for that protection, but not the only one. If an artist can retain control over his creation, more artists will have more incentive to create. That serves the public good.
If no loss of money occurs, no laws are broken.
Um, because you made that up? If I steal your car and leave a check for its market value, was there no crime? I'm flabbergasted that you can make this argument with (as far as ASCII can tell) a straight face.
As I said, it isn't a matter of copyrights, but one of patents. Two entirely different issues.
Of course. Nobody is arguing that they should be deprived of exclusive rights. The argument is if it is legal to modify an item after it is legally purchased.
Um, because you made that up? If I steal your car and leave a check for its market value, was there no crime? I'm flabbergasted that you can make this argument with (as far as ASCII can tell) a straight face.
Incredibly bad example of a strawman argument.
That was explained upthread. If I created a gadget for use on a motorcycle and sold that gadget to Harley-Davidson for them to add to their line of motorcycles, that's perfectly legal, because that's a business to business sale, and my patent and copyright is not being infringed upon. If I altered their logo, or they altered mine that's not legal. They own that logo, and I own mine. That's why, when you look in my parents car, the car radio has a BOSE logo on it, becaus BOSE made that radio and sold it to Cadillac to install in their cars.
But all airline films are cut so not to offend.
Some television movies are too.
This isn't about property rights, this is about shoving their values down our throats.
The question is what has been legally purchased. Intellectual property is not an instinctively easy concept. If I buy a DVD, I can treat that disc in any way I see fit. I can toss it in the microwave, throw it as a Frisbee in the park, glue cork to the bottom and use it as a coaster, or load it into a skeet launcher and fire a 12-gauge at it.
No one is arguing that it should be illegal to skip scenes or mute dirty words on a DVD. I have every right, as the buyer of a book, to skip over page 212.
But if you sell or distribute the movie without those scenes, if you sell your version of the book with page 212 ripped out, you are selling something that does not belong to you. You are stealing the fruits of someone else's labor and twisting someone else's efforts to your ends.
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