[GAB-1955]

The principle is this: the owner of an intellectual property has the right to determine how it is sold or used. No one else does, not even for a "higher" good. Even if CleanFlicks paid royalties for the movie, what they have done is the legal equivalent of stealing someone's car, painting it, and having a new stereo put in. It's still stolen property.

When you buy a movie, you don't buy the copyright to that movie. You buy rights to see the movie. You can't show that movie for profit in front of others.

You can't paint your neighbor's house because you don't like the decor.

What CleanFlicks did was steal someone's property and change it. The moral issues are important but not relevant to this issue.

[Dark Knight]

That is the crux of the issue. Are you actually buying property like a DVD or a license? Copyright violation is not as cut and dried as it used to be, since there is a tax on media like tapes and DVDs paid to content providers to account for piracy.

Since the content providers make similar changes for others, artistic merit is not an issue. Copyright is. It is not the same as a physical theft no matter how much lawyers try to assert it.

As a quick exercise in monopoly and price fixing, compare the price of a music CD, and a movie. Then compare cost to make them. The industry itself fuels piracy.

DK