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Even if you're not a resident of Utah, you've surely heard of companies like "Clean Flicks" before. Like, for example, in the virtual pages of this very blog. It's a prickly subject among movie fans, and that's probably an understatement. Basically, several companies in Utah have taken it upon themselves to edit all the "objectionable" material out of Hollywood's hottest films, and many in the Mormon community are more than happy to throw those discs into their DVD players, secure in the knowledge that Braveheart will be less bloody, that Forrest Gump never felt a female embrace, and that...

CleanFlicks Founder Arrested Charged with forcible sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl, Daniel Thompson was known for editing videos to make them more family friendly. The co-founder of CleanFlicks, a video editing service once used by many Christians, has been arrested in Utah for allegedly paying a 14-year-old girl for sex. Daniel Thompson, who ran CleanFlicks till the courts shut it down in 2006, had more recently operated Flix Club, a family-friendly edited-movie video business in Orem, Utah. He was arrested last Thursday on two charges of forcible sexual abuse and two charges of forcible sexual activity with a 14-year-old....

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A federal judge in Colorado has handed the entertainment industry a big win in its protracted legal battle against a handful of small companies that offer sanitized versions of theatrical releases on DVD. The case encompasses two of Hollywood's biggest headaches these days: the culture wars and the disruptive influence of digital technologies. Senior U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch came down squarely on the side of the Directors Guild of America and the major studios in his ruling that the companies must immediately cease all production, sale and rentals of edited videos.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Sanitizing movies on DVD or VHS tape violates federal copyright laws, and several companies that scrub films must turn over their inventory to Hollywood studios, an appeals judge ruled. Editing movies to delete objectionable language, sex and violence is an "illegitimate business" that hurts Hollywood studios and directors who own the movie rights, said U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch in a decision released Thursday in Denver. "Their (studios and directors) objective ... is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," the judge wrote....

Christian vs Christian in pop culture smackdown: "Mel Gibson's film production company has filed a lawsuit against a Utah firm for editing his movie The Passion of the Christ. The suit targets Ray Lines and his company CleanFlicks, which edits the nudity, violence and foul language out of films. (...) "The lawsuit is not asking for compensation, KUTV reports, but rather seeks to shut down CleanFlicks for good."

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

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 18 — After months of watching a gradual proliferation of companies offering sanitized versions of Hollywood hits to sensitive or politically conservative consumers, movie studios and filmmakers have decided it is time to get a handle on this phenomenon. "This is very dangerous, what's happening here," said Jay D. Roth, national executive director of the Directors Guild of America. "This is not about an artist getting upset because someone dares to tamper with their masterpiece. This is fundamentally about artistic and creative rights and whether someone has the right to take an artist's work, change it and...