Free Republic

It's acceptable for consumers to use software that edits out nudity or bad language from a DVD movie -- but they had better leave the commercials and promotional announcements in, according to legislation adopted by the House of Representatives this week. The main thrust of House Resolution 4077, also known as the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004, is to make it illegal to smuggle a camcorder into a movie theater, surreptitiously record a film and then circulate the homemade production on the Internet. But when it came time to vote, lawmakers did a little editing of their own...

<p>Three small companies that manufacture technologies that filter out the sex, gore and violence from DVD movies are hoping to avoid a protracted legal fight with Hollywood.</p> <p>ClearPlay, Family Shield Technologies and Trilogy Studios filed a motion Friday in the United States District Court in Denver to dismiss claims that their products infringe on the copyrights of motion pictures.</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...