Back in September, I noted that CleanFlicks and similar companies that edited DVDs to make them more “family friendly” had been shut down entirely, following a court decision in July that ordered those companies to turn their inventories over to the Hollywood studios whose works they had been editing illegally.
But now the website for CleanFlicks is up and running again, and the Associated Press tells us why:
Thanks to what they say is a loophole in copyright law that allows cuts for educational purposes, some of the companies that were ordered to turn over their inventory to Hollywood studios instead are scrubbing more movies, and other firms are getting into the market.
Film editors say the education clause can be used to get around the July 2006 ruling by Judge Richard P. Matsch that sanitizing movies on DVD or VHS tape violates federal copyright laws. The ruling was thought to have marked the end of a three-year legal battle between several film editing companies and 16 Hollywood directors started by a Colorado CleanFlicks store.
Presumably the studios will drag these companies back into court, and when they do, it will be interesting to see whether the courts allow this understanding of “educational purposes” to stand.
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