Court Rules Against Sanitizing Films

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.

CleanFlicks is illegal; Clearplay isn't. But the ultimate result of both services is the same, which one could argue indicates a flaw in copyright law.

True, but one might as easily argue the flaw runs in the other direction-- that Cleanflicks should not be illegal. At any rate, I don't see who Clearplay could ever be made illegal-- if it was, we really would be on the road to outlawing the fast forward on the remote, and I would have had to watch all of Lethal Weapon 4 to see the fight scene at the end.

stacytec wrote:
My opinion on the topic has always been that a vice is something that a person allows themselves to have, be it alcohol, drugs, sex or thrillseaking. Any number of things can be damaging if you allow them to consume you, which is why the concepts of self control and moderation are so important in a free society. I've always considered the thought process of blaming the vice ( sex, tobacco, booze, ect) as a scapegoat for accepting personal responsibility for one's actions

Comment:

The enabling of sexual deviates by liberals is one of the many reasons why I dumped the inane, wrong track Democrat party after 20 years of towing the proverbial party line.

Personally, I do not want to have any sort of association with the kinds of people who even come close to supporting the perversion coming out of Hollywood in any way, shape or manner.

Is a so-called free society one where anything goes as long as it feels good to the individual?

Accepting responsibility in my Red State World is being a mature adult parent by making sure that the depraved perverts permeating Hollywood’s movies do not have the chance to destroy my children though the use of sick filth pawned off as having artistic value.

Art to me is not some feces encrusted canvas fawned over by narrow-minded sick elitist’s wannabes with no common sense.

Nor are photos of two men in the throws of stimulating one another while in a San Francisco bathhouse.

Moreover, of course nor are those kinds of movies showing two grown men packing fudge in their Montana sleeping bag.

It was not that long ago that some kinds of so-called art were an exclusivity of those mature enough to understand what they were seeing.

I make no excuses for how I feel about these low life scumbags.

I do not want them or their sorry excuses for amusement around my family.

In my opinion, most of the enlightened people living in New York City and Hollywood would not know stand-up from squat about what constitutes good art.

The art I saw in some of the galleries the last time in New York City would not be worthy of hanging on an Oklahoma outhouse wall.

Unless of course this outhouse was used by Metrosexual sheepherders, so inclined as to watch movies such as Broke Back Mountain and hang out in the pasture on Saturday night trolling for girlfriends.

We just saw "Russian Ark" recently, since we will be going to the Hermitage in just a few weeks, and wanted to get a preview. It's amazing, all right - since it's all in one take, it's exactly the way the world appears seen through your own eyes. The voices are at such a low murmur, though, that in the evenings after dinner, we'd doze off and realize we'd missed whole parts of it. I think it took us about a week to watch the whole thing!

Edited Airline and TV films have negotiated rights with the movie companies. It's pretty clear none of this Clean Films stuff was done with the slightest attempt to get any approval or permission or licensing rights.

You are correct.This is the heart of the matter. There must be an agreement between the companies. Broadcasted movies (not cable or satellite subscription, broadcast) are an exception as previously noted.

Would social conservatives want Hollywierdos butchering "The Ten Commandments" to alter it's meaning? I think not. As a social conservative, I am still unable to accept allowing copyright infringement though I see value in the option. Get the permission, Clean Flicks. If you can't, make clean original movies.

I was there about 10 or so years ago, it was still pretty Soviet. The building I was in didn't have its heat turned on by authorities, so I froze. I bought a heavy army winter trench coat on the street for 15 bucks and slept in that.

Neat place, I'd like to go back, but it was a demanding, cold trip for me, from Phoenix to New York to Prague, spend a few days, then Helsinki, spend the night, a few days in St. Pete and another night in Helsinki and Prague again. All flights stand-by.

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