CleanFlicks — a company that edits DVDs to remove what they consider gratuitous language, sex and violence — has been hit by a number of lawsuits over the years. Last year, this family-friendly company was even sued by Mel Gibson for cutting three minutes out of The Passion of the Christ. Now, the Associated Press reports that they lost one of those lawsuits — and they lost it big:
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. “There is a public interest in providing such protection.”
Matsch ordered the companies named in the suit, including CleanFlicks, Play It Clean Video and CleanFilms, to stop “producing, manufacturing, creating” and renting edited movies. The businesses also must turn over their inventory to the movie studios within five days of the ruling. . . .
My gut reaction is to say “good riddance” to those firms. I do believe in respecting the integrity of a work of art — really, what’s the point in watching a movie like Saving Private Ryan without the intense violence!? — and I also believe that parents need to train their children in the fine art of discernment, and I also believe it’s kind of silly to assume that some other person’s criteria for censoring a movie will match that of any given consumer.
However, that said, I also think our copyright laws are way out of control, and while I have not yet seen such fan-edited works as The Phantom Edit, I do applaud that sort of thing in principle. So I don’t necessarily want to take the studios’ side here, either.
JUL 9 UPDATE: The Hollywood Reporter notes that the judge’s ruling does not apply to ClearPlay, a company that does not make and sell its own edited DVDs but, instead, sells a DVD player that alters the picture and sound “on the fly”. What’s more, the player allows the viewer to set the filters separately — so you can watch the movie one way with the kids, and watch it another way with the spouse, and watch it another way by yourself, etc., etc. While these players are still open to abuse, they do at least leave more responsibility with the parents than those other outlets do.
Naturally, the fact that those other companies have been punished by the courts, but ClearPlay hasn’t, upsets everybody:
Early on, the legal sparring involved Salt Lake City-based ClearPlay, which offers video filtering software that allows for home viewing of cleaned-up versions of Hollywood titles.
ClearPlay offers software programs developed for specific titles that users can run on their computer or ClearPlay’s proprietary DVD player along with an official copy of the DVD. With this technology, a nude shot of an actor can be altered to show a silhouette, or profanity can be bleeped out. Because ClearPlay’s technology does not involve making an altered DVD copy, it has been shielded from the copyright infringement claims. The debate over movie content filtering activities made its way into Congress, which passed the 2005 Family Movie Act that protects ClearPlay and other software-based filtering companies. Matsch noted that Congress at that time had the opportunity to also carve out legal protections for CleanFlicks and its ilk, but chose not to.
The DGA said in its statement on the ruling it “remains concerned about this exception to copyright protection.”
Matsch’s opinion could wind up eliminating most of ClearPlay’s competition, but company CEO Bill Aho still criticized Matsch’s reasoning.
“While it may be good for ClearPlay Inc., it’s bad for parents,” Aho said. “Moms and dads need all the help they can get to protect their kids, and these companies were providing a valuable service.”
Personally, I don’t see how exposing children to a censored copy of a movie, and thereby helping to create an appetite for the uncensored version, “protects” children or anybody else.
I mean, the last time I checked the CleanFlicks website, they were advertising The Libertine (2004) and The Matador (2005) — two rather subversive films that couldn’t be all that child-friendly even in a censored form. Why would an adult want to see a hacked-up copy of either of those films? And why would a protective parent want to let their children watch those films in any form?
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