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Because it's offered by a third party; who is publishing and distributing a new edition of the work, in defiance of copyright

cleanflicks.com
Option 1 - Edited DVDR: $ 10.00
Choose this option if you already own an original production DVD of the title you have chosen. Simply choose the title you'd like to purchase, click "buy now", and we'll send you your own edited copy to go along with your original.

As a representative of the aforementioned uber-religious, fascist, etc., I'm kind of sad to hear this. Up until two months ago, I didn't know such companies existed. My brother's fiancé bought him a copy of Vanilla Sky from a company called CleanFlicks. I was visiting him and I watched it. They do a really good job of dubbing and scrubbing, much better than is done on tv (the audio sync is really good, the editing doesn't seem like it was done on the first try).

I probably wouldn't have watched the film otherwise, and I really enjoyed it. You can say what you want about that being stupid, naive, sheltered, etc., but for the moment, this is still the U.S. and it's considered a right to choose what you watch or don't watch. Anyway, I went to their website after reading this, and it looks like they've also been renting edited movies. Their site didn't mention the court case, but they were mentioned and quoted in the article. Despite their corny quote about the situation, I'm happy these types of companies exist.

My main question is, what does hollywood have to gain from this? I never heard anyone freaking out about MST3K editing movies, but maybe this is a bit different. Still, it seems hollywood actually gains revenue from sales they might not get otherwise. I'd love to know their real motivation.

(most of whom not only don't give you permission to create derived works

I agree with most everything you wrote. However I should point the courts have held again and again and again you don't permission to create a derivied work. You simply need to purchase one license per... for example clean flicks buys one copy of the movie for each copy they create. Hollywood tried to shut them down but they won the lawsuits easily.

Also a minor quibble
And even though many commercial libraries don't place a lot of restrictions on what you can do with the derivative works, nearly all of them place some fairly severe constraints on how you can create those derivative works -- specifically, that you must purchase one license for each and every developer who will use it. The GPL is very liberal about that side of it.

Technically with a GPLed work you have one license for each developer (actually for each copy of the library) as well. It just so happens that these licenses are free and you can self issue them.

n addition the bill would "permit people to use technology to skip objectionable content -- like a gory or sexually explicit scene -- in films, a right that consumers already have.

Not the way Cleanflicks does it. "We are the leading provider of Edited Hollywood movies." Editing out naked Kate Winslet in Titanic, and Arnold's bare-naked-butt in Terminator 2 and Terminator 3.

They've been fighting in court against MGM and Universal for years, because they used to take the actual mastered DVD and burn their own "version" of the movie, and ship that back to the customer. They've finally worked out a way around it, where the actual disk isn't changed and shipped back to the customer. They sell a player that blurs or skips scenes, based on the flashable firmware (you have to pay for a subscription on the firmware updates). I doubt Saving Ryan's Privates would even play.

This law makes them legal. Whoot for Orin Hatch. Whoot for special interests. Whoot for Illinois kicking out the Mormons back when they had the chance in the 1800's. Whoot for Utah.

I understood the part about skipping objectionable content while not skipping commercials to make products like Cleanflicks legal.

Cringeley's Snapster is somewhat similar to what's already been done with video rentals. There's a company around called Cleanflicks that buys videos, edits stuff that they think is questionable, then rents them. Hollywood got very hot over this and hit them hard with the lawyers. (Of course the artists had a problem with the censorship, this probably could be the subject of another thread.) Hollywood actually lost. The way their activities were covered under fair use was by having anybody who wants to rent pay a membership fee, turning them into part owners of all of the material. This precedent seems encouraging.

Some people would disagree with you. Saving Private Ryan

Uncle Eazy

I mean, there is nudity in reality, so why shun it from a movie? A bit of realism in movies doesn't hurt, it's not like you'd want to remove the blood and noise from Saving Private Ryan and show it to your children.

"Personally supervised by director James Cameron, this special edition includes scenes eliminated prior to the film's 1986 release which broaden the narrative scope and enrich the emotional impact of the film."

Which they then go on to remove :)

A device that does that puts the power to choose what to see and what not to see in the hands of the consumer, where it belongs.

Here's an example I found on the Web. In the original version of this scene from Titanic (shown on the left...her naked chest is blurred, which rather detracts from the point), Kate Winslet is lying nude on the couch while Leo draws her. In the 'revised' version from MovieMask, she's chastely wearing a blouse.

Now Titanic ain't exactly Citizen Kane, but this is wrong on so many levels. It's called artistic vision, folks, and it's not to be taried with. Artists have very few rights in our culture, but presenting their art the way they intended is one of them.

Because I believe that any unauthorized change to a work of art is unforgivable, I'm reticent to address specific cases, but I can't resist. In this case, this is a critical scene in the film's romantic sub-plot. When Winslet's character, Rose, exposes herself hear to Jack, it is a statement of the changes in her that he has engendered. It is Rose's pronouncement of independence. Now it'sjust a scene about the heroine getting drawn.Furthermore, the historical details of costume and scenography received exacting detail in this film. Which historian picked out Winslet's digital ensemble? Dave, the video editing guy?

MovieMask ('You're gonna love it!' says product endorser Marie Osmond) and its brethren offer sanitized versions of, among others, Fight Club, Saving Private Ryan, Schlinder's List and Training Day. In all of these films, the violence is crucial to the artwork's theme. Not just plot or setting,but theme--the films' central messages. The idea of violence as therapy is at the centre of Fight Club. The first twenty-six minutes of Saving Private Ryan represent one of the most moving and powerful depictions of war in cinematic history. To cleanse them of violence is to strip them of their power. To edit Schlinder's List, deeply disrepects the trials of the Jewish people. Without drugs, violence and foul language, Training Day is Turner & Hooch with goatees.

Much of the market for this product comes from Christians in the United States. Why do I say this? It's espoused on Christian sites like this, CleanFlicks is based in Utah and the Moral Majority has a rich history of censorship. Why do these people want to see these films in the first place, if they're morally dubious? So they can chat about Matt Damon around the water cooler? Tough luck. You either opt in to our culture of violence and sex or you opt out.

But that's not true...if you're only opposed to violence, go see My Big Fat Greek Wedding. If you're opposed to sex and foul lanugage, you're pretty safe watching The Bourne Identity or Panic Room. If you're opposed to both, try The Man Who Wasn't There or Star Wars or Shrek. Unless you're particularly conservative, you've got lots of options. Exercise discretion. I do it, my mother does it and so can you. Alternately, you can suffer alone on your moral high-ground.

But that's not true, either. There's a massive multi-million dollar industry in Christian music, films and books. You can consume art for a lifetime and not hear a secular note, view a Hollywood frame or read an aetheist page. In fact, from what I can tell, the per-capita expenditure on Christian art among Christians is way above the secular average. All the more power to them.

Ultimately, this type of censorship is worse than banning art outright. This way, people have the impression that they've seen a film (why stop there? Shall we cover up Michaelangelo's David's naughty bits?) when they've seen a toothless abberation, a mere shadow of the actual artwork. To the users of MovieMask's and CleanFlicks's and a dozen others' services, do everybody a favour: either watch original films that you're comfortable with or, better yet, just throw out your TV.

That's not it at all. They're selling a mustache-drawing service. You buy the mona lisa print, they draw it for you. If you buy it on-line, they provide the service of buying the print in your name, and then draw the mustache on it (see www.cleanflicks.com). If you want to rent a print of the Mona Lisa, you join a cooperative with a memberhsip fee, that buys the print, makes a copy of it, draws a mustache on it, and hangs on to the original print, assuring that there is always one non-edited print on hand for every edited copy made, and then makes it available to members of the coop. (see http://www.mycleanflicks.com/faq.phtml and click on "Is it legal to edit movies?")

Go to www.cleanflicks.com and you'll note that when you order any movie, they'll provide you the service of buying a fresh copy and editing it for you.

I'd be damn pissed off if I took the time to create A Clockwork Orange, Se7en, or Fight Club, or Pulp Fiction, only to have people stipping it's essense out and changing the experience.

A video store called Clean Flicks near Salt Lake City Utah has been doing this with tapes for a while now. Salon wrote up an article here back in January.

Wait until the Hollywood lawyers get ahold of this

The legal issues on this from Salon:
Hollywood studios are looking into the legality of such editing, but have not yet taken any legal action, perhaps because the phenomenon is confined to Utah, and because any extra publicity might encourage others to follow Lines in his unique crusade.

Clean Flicks says in their FAQ:
Is this legal?
Yes, as long as you own the video tape, you can do whatever you want to with that particular tape. We do not copy movies onto blank tapes. We only edit movies that you own or give us permission to buy for you.