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.
OK, I just watched the Matt Lauer video on the Clearplay website. They showed a violent fighting scene from "The Matrix." Then they showed the Clearplay edit. They silenced (not bleeped) the man saying the word for his buttocks that starts with A (you can clearly see that he says the word). Then they simply skipped the whole fighting sequence. Was the actual Clearplay version of the Matrix 10 minutes long?
I noticed that they had a version of "Flight 93." They say that they edited Scary Moments and Intense Thematic Elements. So what did they do? End the movie after the guy says "Let's Roll?"
Well would it?
I made the mistake of seeing V FOR VENDETTA on the recommendation of a co-worker. It was deliberately insulting to Christians while glorifying everything from homosexuality to terrorism. It included some scenes so over the top in their anti-Western hysteria that they had to be deliberate (e.g., a homosexual preserving a Koran so that its beautiful art and poetry wouldn't be destroyed by dictatorial, rampaging Christians). If Big Brother in 1984 were to make a film, V FOR VENDETTA would be it.
Its not Moore's fault, the people he interview sign releases allowing it to happen.
I think Moore is a hack, but if you are dumb enough to allow him to interview you and sign the release, too bad.
Hey, don't feel bad. I made the mistake of seeing Gangs of New York.
I'm not saying the copyright attaches to the plastic disc. That is why blank DVDs are not copyrighted.
But the content is, whether it's a DVD, CD, book, canvas, the internet, whatever.
Nobody can advocate altering the contents of a book, for example, and selling that for a profit, but they see no problem with editing a movie for distribution. Strange.
Okay, we're in agreement.
Yeah, for his original interviews... I'm thinking of the canned, pre-done interview clips that he gets from networks.
Readers Digest alters books. As for movies, they are altered for TV all the time.
Or the incident with Charlton Heston, who was suffering from Alzheimer's. Moore may have been technically operating within the law on many of these interviews, but he's surely one of the world's lowest forms of scum.
Readers Digest alters books. As for movies, they are altered for TV all the time.
Those rights are purchased. These people didn't buy the rights. They just went ahead and did it.
Sorry, just got here.
50 lashes with a wet noodle and go stand in the corner...
No its not... fair use doctrine.....
Neither the Supreme Court or Congress will weaken U.S. copyright laws, which, by the way, are international.
No worries, this thread is hilarious, the same arguments get disproved every 30 or so posts, then it starts up again.
Its kinda like a mobius strip.
Payment has nothing to do with it. If you're that offended, then by all means don't watch. Don't expect an artist to let you hack at his work so that you don't have to feel offended.
It's folks like you who would rather pay $1200 for a curtain than "poison your mind" by looking at a topless statue of Lady Justice.
Get over yourselves.
Are you saying that its ok to break the law just because you are a conservative and they are liberal? The law is the law, not open to liberal vs conservative arguments, you don't get that. The supreme court won't even hear this case, its cut and dried. Some conservative you are, you want congress to write more laws based on your emotions? Pathetic
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