Posted on 07/10/2006 8:14:23 AM PDT by 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....
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
The techology exists, but it mutes or skips over material; it does not alter content on the disc. So that's fine.
Sorry I insulted your intelligence.
No problem - thanks for the apology.
Hollywood wasn't making any money off the DVDs these guys were producing. Movies are sanitized all the time -- with permission and royalties paid -- for airplanes and television and foreign markets. It's not a major profit center for them, but it's still a profit center.
Yes, selling R and PG/G versions of their movies would increase their market. That's what they want. They're a business. They want more people to buy their DVDs. That's why they release "Unrated" unedited versions of material and R rated versions.
There are hundreds of such books at the local store that sells used college textbooks.
That's because they don't make different versions. In fact, renters often enter a profit-sharing contract with the distributor (a few major distributors cover 90%+ of films) so they don't have to buy stock up front, or just buy a license from a wholesale distributor (representing several distributors) that has sub-license rights. It's often the wholesalers themselves who manufacture the DVDs.
Yet they all have the same warning.
Standard industry boilerplate, often put there by the wholesalers.
And in the case of Baltimore, the films were cut for exhibition there (John Waters had to deal with the censorship board cutting his films before their hometown premiere).
As I said, it depends on how it was done. There's no question of copyright infringement if they made Waters cut his own films before they could be shown. There is one if they cut his film and then showed it. That depends, of course, on whether they had a license from Waters or his estate (or whoever the current copyright holder or license manager is) for a public exhibition of his films.
They weren't his books! No one in this thread has argued that someone should be allowed to deface someone else's property. The question is solely about one's own personal property that someone has bought and paid for.
>"Nope. My understanding is that it would be fine."
That was the original business model for the company that first started doing this by the way.
So if instead of me purchasing the DVD and sending it to them would it still be legal if I called them and had them purchase it on my behalf so I could save the upfront shipping charges and then they made the edits I requested and sent it to me?
"They weren't his books! No one in this thread has argued that someone should be allowed to deface someone else's property. The question is solely about one's own personal property that someone has bought and paid for."
Yes, yes...it was a side story. Hulloa!
They could easily do this and make a ton of money...
Again, they do it all the time for foreign markets, airplanes and television. Put yourself in the Gucci shoes of a movie executive. Do you release edited versions of R rated movies? How many do you release? The more you make, the cheaper the cost per unit. The cheaper the cost per unit, the more profitable the rentals for places like Blockbuster. How big is the market for sanitized versions? Do you release 100,000 60,000, 40,000, 20,000? Anything below 20,000 is cost prohibitive in terms of cost per unit. Has Blockbuster, a major customer, been asking for these versions?
How much money is devoted to marketing the new versions? How much to packaging?
And, lastly, make the wrong decision on this and your job vanishes.
Actually it wouldn't be that easy to do it. Not only would they have to make the cuts but they'd also have to run it by the MPAA again for the rating. The MPAA owns the ratings, you can't just say "this is the PG version of this movie" you need to get it re-rated by the MPAA raters and have them assign that version a PG. Given how much interaction it usually takes with the MPAA to get a lower rating this could be a rather time consuming and labor intensive process. Somebody would have to prove there's a sizable market for it. That's why so many of the "extended" versions are unrated, because they've added stuff to the movie they don't get to just keep the old rating, rather than go through the rating process again it's easier to just send it out unrated. Also notice how when there's deleted scenes in the extras the box with the rating usually contains an adendum indicating that the extras are unrated, same reason, nobody wants to go through the negotiation process with he MPAA all over again for 20 minutes of stuff.
Several people on this other longer thread on this case were talking about using it, I think it's called "CleanPlayer". Since I'm not a parent, I don't worry about watching unexpurgated films, but you'll find some people discussing their use of it on this thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1662608/posts
It exists.
Thanks! I knew I was close but assumed I had the name wrong, and I did.
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