Axing Sex, Swearing From Films Violates Copyright: Court

CBC ^

[steve-b]

Deleting swearing, sex and violence from films on DVD or VHS violates copyright laws, a U.S. judge has ruled in a decision that could end controversial sanitizing done for some video-rental chains, cable services and the internet.

The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by 16 U.S. directors — including Steven Spielberg, Robert Redford and Martin Scorsese — against three Utah-based companies that "scrub" films.

Judge Richard P. Matsch decreed on Thursday in Denver, Colo., that sanitizing movies to delete content that may offend some people is an "illegitimate business."

The judge also praised the motives of the Hollywood studios and directors behind the suit, ordering the companies that provide the service to hand over their inventories....

[weegee]

Darn. I guess this means I won't be getting that cleaned-up version of Basic Instinct 2. Now I'll never know who gets it in the end.

Ditto for Brokeback Mountain. Never WILL know who gets it in the end.

[TheDon]

The media is probably getting this wrong.

Having used these services, I agree.

[TChris]

You are, certainly, with your individual copy. What these companies did was to alter content without the permission of the copyright holder, for resale purposes. Paying for a copy of the original doesn't cover the businesses in this case, since permission was never obtained.

If the two actions of:

1. Buying a legal copy of a movie
2. Editing that copy for content, or paying a business to do it for you

...are both legal, then why is it a violation of copyright law to perform both actions at the same time, and with the same company?

[JLS]

So does this imply that a tv station can not show a movie and bleep out profanity? If so, movies other than made for tv movies are for the most part gone from broadcast TV.

[ihatemyalarmclock]

The court ruled that you cannot appropriate copyright intellectual property, make changes to suit your personal tastes without the copyright owner's permission, and resell it for money.

Effectively, how the self-appointed censors feel about the matter is irrelevant.

This is one of the few court rulings I don't have a problem with.

[Yo-Yo]

So a movie can be edited and cleaned up for broadcast on network TV, but not for sale as a DVD or tape?

Yes, it can with the permission of the copyright holder.

[Borges]

It boils down to the designer regarding pulling in the hems as a legitamte alteration. Same as publishers not having a problem with public libraries. However the company in question is profiting from making alterations that, in the view of the creators, alters the essence of the product.

[linda_22003]

Because by doing it en masse, as a business venture, they are way beyond the "fair use" coverage in copyright law. If they had partnered with the studios to do this, they would have been fine, but they went ahead even after permission was denied.

[Hendrix]

"If Hollywood was smart, they'd follow what the record companies have been doing for years --releasing "clean" and "unedited" CDs."

They are not doing it for the money. Almost everything Hollywood puts out is put out to influence and change minds, and making money is a secondary reason.

[linda_22003]

No; that is done with the permission of the studios, and with the cooperation of the studios themselves, with the proper royalties paid.

[Syntyr]

Well this will change things. So the big networks will no longer be able to cut the swear words etc out of the movies they broadcast. Thats going to make for some interesting prime time movies... Oh wait they are "the big networks" not some "religious" group this dosen't apply to them.

[Borges]

There's no such thing as morally neutral Art.

[DoughtyOne]

I'm not sure what this guy was doing. If he was sanitizing movies, charging a small premium and sending the full price minus the premium to the studios, I'm okay with it. If he wasn't sending funds back to the source, I do think it's problematic.

The idea of sanitizing need not be limited to the likability of the producer or actors. It has to do with some people simply not wanted to have children's or adult movies loaded with improper content. I'm not trying to say that the adult stuff is improper, but some folks just don't care to hear non-stop vulgarity and sex scenes.

It seems to me that the studios would do well to sanitize movies on their own, but they won't. It reduces their cash take considerably, but it's their choice.

[Borges]

The big Networks have permission. So do Airlines.

[linda_22003]

See #110 for the real explanation, not the melodramatic one.

[Common Tator]

This is another liberal decision from the bench at the insistence of leftist producers that is conveniently devoid of both legal reasoning and legal precedent.

Then you must believe that the owner of copyrighted materials cannot determine who sells it and canot control modifications made to his copyrighted material.

Perhaps you would consider it conservative if someone took the movie "Passion of the Christ" and removed every reference from the movie that showed Jesus rose from the dead.

If you removed the right scenes so the movie could show that Jesus was just an ordinary person who was convicted of crime and put to death.

Would you defend someones right to do that? You can't have it both ways. Copyright owners either have the right to control what they copyright or they do not.

[new cruelty]

Never NEED TO know who gets it in the end.

[TChris]

However the company in question is profiting from making alterations that, in the view of the creators, alters the essence of the product.

That argument doesn't ring true to me either, since these studios regularly edit their movies for content so they may be shown on network television.

[linda_22003]

That's why I don't (and I think the courts don't) have a problem with companies that make hardware to "mute" or otherwise suppress objectionable scenes or language in movies. They are not altering the content on the disc at all, just how it is perceived on the viewer end.

[discostu]

Because there's a difference between a license to distribute and a license to edit. If these guys openly bought to re-distribute (legal distribution license) then they were never considered the final owners, being as they weren't the final owners they had no legal right to edit because within the definitions of copyright law they never owned the movie, they merely held them waiting for someone else to pay them for it.

Also notice how many of the plantiffs rarely have their movies shown on broadcast TV or airplanes. Many directors put clauses in their contract not allowing external editors of their final product, so in order for the editing necessary for TV and airlines to happen they themselves would have to agree to do the editing or waive that clause. This would also put the editing companies in contract violation over and above copyright issues.