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 ...
"You missed it by THAT much..."
"In declining states the leadership intuitively choses the most harmful course of action." -A Great Historian 1888
You shouldn't change the law to make stealing legal.
"I guess my high school AP English teacher was committing a crime then, when he showed us "Clan of the Cave Bear" and kept fast-forwarding through the sex scenes."
But, that was the only redeeming aspects of that movie! Darryl Hannah was Ayla, IIRC (I only know that because I read the book - the movie was quite forgetable).
Words and the spelling of them are facts, and facts can't be copyrighted (see Feist v. Rural Tel. Service Co., 1991). Creative organization and layout, plus comments and the specific wording of definition go into a dictionary, which make the work as a whole copyrighted.
Patents don't apply unless you have a specific unique method for creating a dictionary.
Moreover just as Kleenex and Jello were nonsense words before their invention as brand names, so too was spelling so irregular prior to Wabster's artifact that the regular use of a particular spelling was no "fact".
Then patent it, but that's completely separate from copyright. You can usually tell someone who doesn't know IP law at all by the way they mix up patent, copyright and trademark.
We have used Clean Films for some time and I just got this reply to an email I sent to them.
UH-oh.... you just admitted you watched a Jane Fonda movie! :)
yeh and it was just as bad as we thought it would be even though they cleaned it up.
"Why is Hollywood so hell bent on forcing sex and profanity on our kids. Bunch of perverts."
"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."
Hollywood could sell more DVDs if it made sanitized versions, but it refuses to do so based on principal (that no one dare change their art).
I don't see any PG versions of R rated movies. They could easily do this and make a ton of money, but it shows that the business reasons are outweighed by other reasons. Hollywood does not make movies just for profit--they do it for other reasons as well. In other words, the profit motive is not there primary concern.
It's amazing to me how many people don't believe that Hollywood is in it for the money.
It's amazing to me how many people don't believe that Hollywood is in it for the money.
As it should be. The business part is among the least interesting aspects. Do people really care about ancillary rights in South America or broadcast rights in Finland?
The two have come to overlap. Yes, I despise current "IP" law, so I don't know it. I like the older concepts. Call me "retro", but I make no demands on others that fall in category hypocritical -- such as one who freely borrows from Noah Webster's IP with a song and dance as payment.
Even if your absurd claim were true, his works are in the public domain now, so no possibility of infringement.
Then so too *should* be Mickey Mouse. More than 14 years since Stemboat Willie left the inkwell of Walt Disney.
..if Shakespeare were alive today, he would be doing those exact things.
&&
Well, we'll never know that for certain. But it is quite clear that his writing skills were sufficient to make gory scenes unnecessary. The same cannot be said for the hacks that call themselves writers today, which is why I see, onn average, only one motion picture per year.
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