The difference is then it's the owner of the movie editing it (via a third party) as opposed to someone illegally selling an edited copy.
No, what these companies did was distribute edited copies of DVD without the copyright holder's permission. They DID effect the actual of the video distributed through them, that's illegal. How are they shooting themselves in the foot? They prevented somebody else from profiting on an edited version of their movies, if they want to sell a cleaned up version they will, they're the copyright holder that's their choice.
It's patently obvious that liberaltarians, like the hollyweird wackos, want to prohibit families from the CHOICE to not watch offensive conduct.
Liberaltarian wackos tried to shut down clearplay as well, and they LOST. The reasoning behind the Family Movie Act, applies to this situation as well.
Liberaltarian wackos just don't want to admit that they want to force smut down the throats of Americans.
They are big-government statists, against a free market and private enterprise. If the free market results in the editing out of objectionable content, then so be it, that's the way Capitalism works.