A Right to Sanitize Home-Viewed Films

The Indianapolis Star ^ | February 24, 2993 | Editorial Board Member

[RAT Patrol]

Our position is: Hollywood should worry less about trademarks and more about the filth in so many movies.

Families put off by the violence, gratuitous sex and foul language in movies have prompted the development of sanitizing software and devices. Parents can patronize a chain of video stores (none locally) that offer cleaned-up Hollywood hits. Or they can do the job at home with the help of software.

[RightOnline]

"Yep, that's the moral principal: The ends justify the means."

You threw a grenade that missed. Explain.

[Oztrich Boy]

Louie Armstrong "if you have to ask what it is, you'll never know"

[tortoise]

It seems that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the extent and nature of copyright and intellectual property laws with respect to media. The reality is quite a bit harsher than what most people believe; what you do in the privacy of your own home with media that you own is almost certainly illegal part of the time.

While I would personally state that I think CleanFlicks should be able to do what they do, it is almost certainly in violation of the law as it is currently written, particularly since CleanFlicks is a public entity. You DO NOT have the right to purchase media and distribute it in any other form, format, or otherwise on any media other than the original without the permission of the copyright owner. This is all thanks to some amendments to the Copyright Act in the 1970s (plus some later lovely additions). The only right to additional sale or rental that CleanFlicks has is of the unmodified original media. Other companies and organizations that do their own minor modifications of various movies have contracts that allow them to make those changes to that media.

The only practical way to do what CleanFlicks does without violating the law is to use some type of metadata system which doesn't currently exist in any meaningful sense (i.e. send out additional data with the movie that a player can use to "sanitize" the movie on the fly). This may be possible in the future when some of the upcoming digital media container formats become ubiquitous, but for now they are pretty much hosed.

[cynwoody]

Here's another hypothetical: I buy a CD, then burn a copy of it, cutting out a track I don't like. Then I sell the copy in the original case, while keeping the original. Do you think that's not a violation of Fair Use?

That would be a copyright violation.

However, that's not what's happening here. It's Fair Use to make a derivative work that is more to your liking. Examples would include using a yellow marker to highlight interesting parts of a book or cutting a picture out of a newspaper or magazine. In this case the Fair User is simply hiring somebody (CleanFlicks) to edit out the parts of his copy of a movie that he finds objectionable. What's wrong with that?

It's great that Jack Valenti has chosen to pick a fight over this. He is an idiot, and this will end up damaging his cause!

[tortoise]

It's done all the time, you admit it, but if the director removes a "s**t" or a "go**amn", it's ok. A third party does it, oh my gosh, it's the end of artistic freedom and society as we know it.

Regardless, it is against the law for CleanFlicks to do it without the consent of the owners of the media rights. It may not seem right, and it may not even be intuitive, but it is currently the law.

[tortoise]

In this case the Fair User is simply hiring somebody (CleanFlicks) to edit out the parts of his copy of a movie that he finds objectionable. What's wrong with that?

Because that is not what is happening. If you bought a movie as a private individual and paid someone to "sanitize" your movie, it might slide under the Fair Use provisions (which incidentally, have special exemptions with respect to audio and movies). For a commercial entity to buy movies, sanitize them, and then rent or sell them does not fall under Fair Use under the current statutes. What most people think Fair Use is for movies and audio only applies to private home use and is specifically prohibited under any other conditions.

[cynwoody]

The only practical way to do what CleanFlicks does without violating the law is to use some type of metadata system which doesn't currently exist in any meaningful sense (i.e. send out additional data with the movie that a player can use to "sanitize" the movie on the fly).

Actually there are several outfits working on this. Check out this link. As you say, when it's done via software running on the end user's playback equipment, there can be no doubt that it is fair use, since the derivative work is created by the consumer in his own home.

As for CleanFlicks, they should make it clear that they are not selling sanitized movies, but rather are offering their customers the service of sanitizing their customers' movies for them.

[RightOnline]

Sorry. Clumsy. Make your point. I can see what you are getting at, but if you choose to engage in debate on this forum, you have to do far better than that.

Non-sequitors don't cut it here.

[Heyworth]

In this case the Fair User is simply hiring somebody (CleanFlicks) to edit out the parts of his copy of a movie that he finds objectionable. What's wrong with that?

If that was the case, you'd think that the consumer could select any movie at all and send it to Cleanflicks. That is not the case, though. They have a catalog of films which they have presumably edited already.

[eno_]

I think what people are debating here is not whether what CleanFlicks does is legal, but whether they can sucessfully defend themselves against a tort claim. Certainly there is no question of a criminal act here. There is a big difference.

There are certainly many parallels in businesses that have strong patent, copyright, and trademark protections and that also have aftermarket modders that would scream bloody murder about restraint of trade if the makers of the modded product tried to shut them down. At the very least there are laws in conflict here.

Films as "art" are trying to be special. THAT will be interesting to see hold up in court.

Jack Valenti was LBJ's propagandist, and is a singularly evil man. It would be especially delicious to see him break his pick on some Mormon philistines.

[Heyworth]

It's done all the time, you admit it, but if the director removes a "s**t" or a "go**amn", it's ok. A third party does it, oh my gosh, it's the end of artistic freedom and society as we know it.

I never said it was the end of artistic freedom and society as we know it. I said that it was a violation of intellectual property laws. And intellectual property is a different thing than an OEM situation as a matter of law. There's no copyright on a car. And the fact remains: do it with the approval of the copyright holder and it's not a problem. Do it yourself at home and it's not a problem. Do it without the approval, or do it and sell the product and it is a problem. You're still selling a new DVD with a derivative work on it.

And as to the appropriateness of the Coulter example, you're the one who refuses to see that there's any parallel with you cutting out something that you find offensive "for the children", and someone else cutting out something that they don't like "for the children."

[tortoise]

As for CleanFlicks, they should make it clear that they are not selling sanitized movies, but rather are offering their customers the service of sanitizing their customers' movies for them.

It sounds like they are doing more than offering a sanitizing service to customers where the customer bring in a VHS tape and get it back with the sanitized version. Note that this would be illegal for DVDs any way you slice it; DVDs have a tangled web or restrictions, either directly or indirectly, that make it effectively impossible to do just about anything with them legally except watch them.