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.
Enjoy the freedom. I am. Just don't get into a tizzy when some religious nutburger or TV Nazi decides what you're watching on TV is filthy.
The people in Hollywood are idiots. All this is going to do is spawn a whole new alternative industry. Family friendly filmmakers will launch new companies. Christian's will open their own theaters. And these people will simply stop spending any money on Hollywood products.
Now you're just being ridiculous. I figured when you first started posting to me, you were serious, now I'm not quite so sure.
I swear, threads like this are discouraging, the inability for people to understand simple basic laws is frightening. Add in all the whining, handwringing and bitching and moaning about what "should" happen and its really sad.
Grownups make laws, copyright is a law, a movie is owned by someone, others can't make changes to that and distribute or profit from that. Everything else discussed here is a waste of words.
Christians can open their own theatres and show their own movies, but they can't take existing copyright works and edit and change them to show in their theatres.
This issue has nothing to do with your distaste for Hollywood or liberals, its about the rule of law.
Remember the rule of law? Everyone here was all for it during the Clinton impeachment, but when its their ox being gored, they want to ignore it.
I don't know, I think it's kinda interesting. Though some of these people would benefit from a trip to hollywood and a film set some time.
What is really interesting is the fact that pop culture -- movies, music, etc. -- are some of the most profitable exports the U.S. has today. These folks want this profit center to vanish.
Shut the hell up, you look like a fool.
This issue has nothing to do with liberal/conservative, its about copyrights and intellectual property.
Your inability to understand that, and you penchant to think on this with emotions rather than logic show that you are incapable of thinking clearly on this. I'd love to see you argue this in front of a judge, you'd be laughed out of the building.
Its funny, whenever a poster has no real argument here, they just resort to calling someone a "liberal", learn a new strategy, the "you are a liberal" one is old and lazy.
Just think if someone recorded Rush Limbaugh's show, edited things out of it to make him sound liberal, and distributed it to people who wanted to hear a liberal Limbaugh show.
All of a sudden these people would, once again, embrace the rule of law.
Family friendly filmmakers will launch new companies. Christian's will open their own theaters. And these people will simply stop spending any money on Hollywood products.
This is already happening to a small degree, though it's extremely difficult to make movies "outside of Hollywood" for a number of reasons.
However, please note, this will not "punish" mainstream Hollywood in any significant way. Hollywood's market is global. The U.S. is not even the largest portion of it.
Movies simply don't seem like "property" to them. That's not a moral failing or a particularly bad intellectual failing. It's simply a failing to understand how an abstract thing can be "property."
What are you? A Hollywood producer? Pretty soon you'll be calling me a "creepy liar".
I've called you out on your stupid "its the law" argument.
And thats the best you've got?
Pathetic. Like I said, people like you are "useful idiots. Rubes who are taken by the Hollywood elite.
WOuld you favor sanitizing the Bible?
Pathetic. Like I said, people like you are "useful idiots. Rubes who are taken by the Hollywood elite.
There are no Hollywood elites. There's a handful of major companies -- Sony, Time/Warner, Viacom, Vivendi, etc. -- that have to answer to stockholders.
It is the rule of law. You can't get around that, that is why there is a copyright law.
You can't take someone else's work, modify it and sell or distribute it. Plain and simple.
And the judge agrees.
So, do you abide by the rule of law, or just bitch and moan about it?
Again, if someone took the Limbaugh show and edited it to make it sound like he was a liberal, and then sold and distributed it, how would you feel about that?
Its amazing the lengths people will go to justify breaking the law, provided they agree with it politically.
What ever happened to logic here? If someone disagrees with someone here, why they must be a "liberal".
Don't they teach logic and persuasion in college anymore?
Been done. Thomas Jefferson produced a highly edited version of the Bible that he felt better suited his needs. Basically took out all of the miracles. Here's the text:
http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/deist1999/jeff_bible.htm
It's called intellectual property. Movies belong to the company that makes them, and cannot be legally altered without permission. The fact the contents are objectionable to some people is immaterial.
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"There is a public interest in providing such protection."
This phrase means the right to intellectual property is absolute and belongs to everyone equally.
If the clean films company bought a copy of a movie, cleaned it, and made 1000 copies to sell, they did indeed violate the law because they profited from some one else's intellectual property without compensating the originator for every copy.
It's stealing.
They just hate "Hollywood" and want to see "them" punished financially. Among some conservatives Hollywood elites are the last acceptable combatants in "class warfare." This is made worse by the fact that Hollywood actually seems engaged in this battle when, in reality, they're simply trying to cater to a global market.
LOL! Okee Dokee, then.
A better question might be this: if you truly object to the content of a film, why would you watch a sanitized version of it? What's the point of objecting in the first place? The original content has not gone away just because you skipped over it. This reminds me of vegetarians who eat food that tastes like meat. Makes no sense to me.
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