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Directors Guild of America is Fighting Edited Films
BoyPlankton writes "According to this article in the Salt Lake Tribune, film directors are gearing up to battle companies that are making a name for themselves selling/renting out edited films to consumers. The film directors claim that it's censorship and that it's morally, ethically, and legally wrong. The companies doing it claim that consumer rights trump the artists rights in this case, and that the artists don't have the moral ground to stand on because they already edit their films for T.V. and planes. Is this issue going to further erode our rights as a consumer, or will lawmakers take this opportunity to shore them up?"
They who pay for the film and own the rights can do what they want with it. Everyone else involved were just employees.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
So does this mean they'll take on Blockbuster for only renting the censored version of a film?
Hopefully their first target will be George Lucas for his disgraceful "Greedo shot first" revision.
Next they'll tell us we can't skip ahead to the conclusion when we read a book. Jeez.
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My friend worked at this place,.. They take all the popular films and tone them down so the mormon population can enjoy them without worrying about what their kids see on the screen. I think its a good idea.. if you're a parent. I also do understand how the directors may not like their film edited.
I was a bit surprised to notice that the chain Blockbuster Video wasn't mentioned in that article; I seem to recall they've been bowdlerizing their videos for years. But OTOH, they're owned by one of the studios, aren't they?
IMO, there's a substantial difference between selling edited copies of a tape and using a system to overlay your own "edits" onto a full version you've bought. The former is an unauthorized motification, but the latter is within your personal rights for fair use, and not any different from simply hitting the mute or the fast forward button.
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The DGA is probably the only film industry body more fascist than the MPAA. They attempted to FORCE George Lucas to put his name at the beginning of Star Wars in 1978. He refused, they fined him, and he left the organization.
On the current issue, who do they think they're fooling? "Edited for television" has been around at least since I've been allowed to stay up that late. Studios chop scenes out against directors' wishes all the time. What's next, a fight against chapter menus because everybody skips to the Good Parts?
If people are willing to edit your movie to supply the demand for such a thing (ala The Phantom Edit) then why don't movie makers pick up on the demand themselves, and re-release the movies in the way that the audience wants to see them? I know that I'd glady pay another $20 for an official Phantom Menace DVD that had the bright yellow "New and improved! No Jar Jar!" sticker on it...
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but i'd rather see the neo-editors win. The way i see it, you deny them the right to do that, you give the movie-makers more power to "do what they wish" and own everything and anyone related to the movie.
Isn't this what people are trying to fight?
Films are made by people who care passionately about what they do and what their work says
Oh, yeah? Then explain Armageddon to me.
But seriously, folks...
What 'consumer rights'? Who's got the right to see Titanic? What about the right not to see it? More importantly, the right not to hear Celine Dion singing that godawful song?
It could prove interesting, though. If it's is deemed acceptable, will people be allowed, for example, add their own scenes? Change the order of scenes? Imagine if someone were to take a copy of Star Wars and delete the second or so where Greedo pulls a gun. It'd completely change the character of Han Solo.
They've been doing this in Utah at least since Titanic was released. More here, though the editing issue is completely tangential to that particular article.
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You know, for the longest time I'd only seen the for-tv version of Stripes and was completely unaware of the nekkidness in the mud wrestling scene. Now, normally I'm all for nekkid female mud wrestling, just like the next guy, but this isn't exactly the sort of thing that my girlfriend would want to see. And I wouldn't wanna show it to my kids, assuming I ever get around to having some someday. I'd pay for the option to have things like that edited, but if possible it'd be great to get em on the same disc.
Anywho, just my 2 cents...
nwp
If you don't buy the rights to fuck with the original production, you've got no rights to do it. It doesn't matter what the consumers want; it's what the lawyers want. I love to hear the cry 'rights of the consumer'. No commercial venture gives a shit about the consumer. They only care about the consumer's money. Read between the lines: "...rights [for me to get some] of the consumer ['s money]".
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What I've seen a lot of people do for movies is to buy it as is, and then either have someone personally edit out portions they don't like or just have some sort of electronic filter that has a set of edit points stored in memory. I frankly don't see how content providers are going to be able to stop this.
The people editing these video aren't trying to sell them as unaltered works, or even trying to take away the prestige of the movie houses or directors. They're simply playing to a market that makes them some money. Saying that if a video has offensive content, "then you shouldn't watch it" is exactly what this company is doing. They're allowing people not to watch the parts they don't want. I say bravo to them.
industry to see people making money and try to control the technology and sue the people, instead of releasing special edition releases.
sheesh.
Of course, if DVD technology was left to engineers, we would probably have the ability to do this on the fly with dvds.
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Does that mean that Lucas and Spielburg (sp?) cant put the Ewoks into Raiders of the Lost Ark now??
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Ah, there is a difference. I bought the Sony Playstation and if I mod it for my use only, Sony shouldn't care. I'm not trying to sell my "modded" Playstation, just play with. On the other hand, if I want to mod my movie for my own uses, and don't want to sell or rent it to others that should be fine too.
I agree wholeheartedly with the directors. They directed. It's no one elses right to re-direct, unless it was specifically covered in the contract. It reflects on the director when the film has been hacked to shreds and "reads" like a 3rd grader wrote it. shortened scenes and broken stories make them look like they blew it.
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... what's left is the trailer for the latest Disney movie, but this time Bambi is wearing a skirt.
I think the directors and writers should have the right to defend their work from being defaced. We certainly do not have the right to take a sledgehammer to the statue of David to keep kids from seeing a man with no pants. And while it is hard to equate "The Fast and the Furious" (or worse, "Titanic") with classical pieces of art, it is still wrong to edit films that have "objectionable" things in it. Every minute of film costs thousands of dollars, and a director doesn't put it in unless it serves a purpose. Think about it; would a "family friendly" version of "A Clockwork Orange" have the same message or impact? Again, while protecting the artistic integrity of Vin Diesel is unimportant, and a waste of time to boot, all films should be protected in order to protect those that do have deep meanings. And now the family friendly version of Casablanca; No Nazis!
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how is altering the artist's/writers message and rereleasing it without their permission anything other than censorship?
i don't buy the "consumer right" spiel. instead, i am picturing people in areas where businesses are controlled by these religious zealots who are unable to see films and other art in the way the creators intended.
going a step further, (and i am sure i will lose a lot of suport here) it really bothers me when radio stations alter music they play to remove words they consider objectionable. if they feel the material is decent and worthwhile enough to want to make advertising money playing it, then they should support the artist enough to play it the way the creators of the music intended. besides, it is easy enough to understand the INTENT, which cannot be censored, even over the bleeps, pauses and lyric changes which ruin the sound.
I think what the article is getting at is that the director may have something called "Moral Rights" over the work. Essentially this means that the item is a work of art that was produced for a fee and that the author of the work has the right to object to derogatory treatment of the work (i.e. censoring scenes).
The idea being that once a piece of art has been created the author has his/her name attached to it, and thus any treatments of the work done later that do not fit the artist's vision taints the artist's reputation.
I don't know how this works with film, because there are limitations to this when an artists produces work for an employer.. so it may be that the studio owns the moral rights, and I'm also not sure how this works in the US, but the UK and Canada both have moral rights. I'm not entirely sure as IANAL.
But.. here is a link for my karma-whore points... Moral Rights .
Puh-lease. The travesty in all this isn't that directors are fighting our ability to buy edited copies of movies, it's that any idiot would try to take the swear words out of a film in the first place. Don't watch the goddam movie if it offends you so much. While we're at it let's erase all the footage of Elvis Presley's "obscene" hip gyrations and file the tits off the Statue of Liberty. Some people just have no sense...
Film alternate scenes/dialog that conforms to the different levels of viewership.
That was one of the promises of DVD, we were supposed to have multiple ratings at our fingertips so the kids could see the PG version, the teens could see PG-13 and after the children were tucked in, the adults could see the R version.
That hasn't happened. They apparently don't see a market for it. Well if they don't and some consumers do, why the hell shouldn't they be allowed to pursue it?
All these whiney directors need to do is release an editted version themselves. Or are they going to prevent parents from fast-forwarding that one "bad scene" or muting an expletive-laden tirade?
I don't care how "important" the message in Schindler's List is. The scene where there is a nude woman in the German officer's bed is stimulating and sexual. If I had kids, I would want to skip that scene.
Here's what makes me want to puke on these directors...there are a lot of good good movies out there that had to add a single vile scene so they would be able to get the R rating their marketting folks said would sell better. Wasn't that compromising your artistic integrity?
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it is the directors who are censoring derivative works. According to my definition, censorship is a prohibition on distibution due to content or lack thereof. The 'companies' in this case aren't prohibiting anything...though what they are doing may have questionable standing in the current legal environment on account of effective copyright laws.
1. If I buy the tape, and drop in in a fire, that's my right. No one will dispute this.
2. If I can destroy it by fire, I can chop it up, too.
3. Salt Lake City (my home town) is in the news for something besides polygamy. Whoo-hoo!!
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First of all - since it was Disney who said in their ad "Own it [Tarzan] now on Video or DVD" - so if they can then change their mind that i don't actually own it, I can not give a crap.
Secondly - once I have given YOU the money - it IS mine - so if i want to paint the screen with white out, that's my business. With paint or with another device if i so choose.
I can see the DGA being upset with organized resale of modified DVD's and tapes - but once i buy it, i can - and will - do whatever the hell I want with it.... including burning it, using it as a doorstop, changing it, backing it up.
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close your eyes guys... don't look at it, it will be horrible.
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Good luck to these guys.
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as I see it, the services that edit the movies for those that buy them, those services are ok. Those that are renting edited versions are not ok. It's the difference between cutting pages out of your own book, and renting a cut-up book. Even if the consumers know that it's edited, the rental place was not given license to rent anything but what the studio sold them, so it's wrong.
What's really wrong is that these people can't just get over sex and violence and profanity. Sometimes these are actually crucial to the plot. If they're not, then why are you watching a crappy movie with gratuitous non-plot-driven sex? isn't that called porn?
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You really don't see the difference? This isn't about the individual consumer, it's about companies editing then selling the edited works. Directors and producers already have to put up with editing for theatrical release, TV release, airline release, etc., but at least they're able to get some input into the process. Here some people they've never heard of have taken it on their own to distribute edited movies because some people are too uptight to deal with (gasp) nudity and (gasp) violence. If you wrote a book, and your publisher told you to take out a sex scene because they wanted to sell it at Wal-Mart, you'd probably do it, even if you didn't want to. But wouldn't you be furious if someone out in Utah took out a bunch more stuff out then republished it, without your permission or even knowledge?
For those of us who are younger and never saw the original theatrical release of Star Wars, could you clarify the Han Solo/Greedo example?
If you had read the article, you would have seen the part where the director of Valley Girl says that his problem with it is that people are editing movies without the creators input. TV and plane edits are done with the creators input - probably depending on their contract. I know Speilberg apparentlly had it in his contract that E.T. couldn't be re-edited by anyone but him, so when it showed on TV for the first time, the word "shit" was still in there.
Legal issues aside, I understand the Directors feelings. Certainly when you get a competent director who make thoughtful stuff, like Stanley Kubrik or Dave Fincher or Quentin T., it's an insult to have people watching your movies under some sanitary cut. This isn't a plane or TV, where the audience will like the movie and then go to view the real thing. This is either really pathetic people not wanting to be offended, or parent's trying to show your art to children in a butchered manner. I think there is a difference, and 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.
Again, it's not the same as the TV or plane version, because the goal here is not to open the movie for a wider audience (who can then go and see the real thing), it's a viewer asking someone else to protect them permenatly from the scenes that often make the movie.
But I guess I am sort of a sadist when it comes to these things, and prefer movies that make me uncomfortable and show raw humanity at it's best and worst. Also, note that if you think Stanley's, David's, or Quentin's work sucks, pick another director - the point still stands.
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The article also mentions a device you can use at home. That's fine, it's for personal use.
:)
It's only when they resell edited movies that I would cry foul.
This is an interesting issue, to be sure
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So, in order to get your sanitized version of "Where The Boys Aren't #27" or "Fisting Firemen #10" you need to go out and buy a regular copy and then have it edited. And the problem here is what? If these companies bought one copy, edited it and then sold copies as original purchases I'd have an issue with it. But making it possible for the ultra-squeemish to enjoy sanitized versions of their favorite films isn't a problem in my book. It's no different, IMHO, than taking a marker and blotting out the words you find offensive in your copy of "Huckleberry Finn".
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
That's outrageous that directors and their cronies would try and prevent people from editing movies and renting them out. As long as the box is clearly marked and you don't get tricked into renting an edited movie, who's it hurting? People who are so scared of seeing something that might challenge their way of thinking or disturb them would rather watch a sliced-up version of the movie. Maybe they'll enjoy it so much that they decide to see the real thing some day!
On a side note, Blockbuster does this editing nonsense. My friend rented "Mulholland Drive" and during the lesbian scene, the good parts were cropped out or replaced with black boxes. He was tricked into renting this because Blockbuster doesn't clearly label their edited videos.
Are they going to include Pan & Scan movies as edited? When 40% of the movie is deliberately cut out, that's just as bad as bleeping a curse word or deleting a family-unfriendly scene.
As long as the uncut movie is still available, and the "censored" editions are very clear that they're edited, then why should there be any problem? Those who want to hear the cussing and see the sex scenes will buy the unedited version, and those who don't will buy the edited version. Seems like it's just a case of giving people what they want to see. I don't think it's violating the director's rights as long as the original version is still available. It only becomes censorship when you deny people access to the unedited version.
Greedo never pulled a gun on Han. In the 'update' Greedo drew first, thus making Han's shooting of Greedo an act of self defense, instead of cold blooded murder.
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If you want to watch the non edited version..... watch it. If you want to watch the edited version, watch it. Its not as if they're eliminating the oppertunity for people to take the art as it was originally created.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
Personally, I have no desire to be deluged by profanity, for example, when I see a movie. I think that having "cleaned-up" versions of movies is a great idea.
That said, at least as the law stands now, it probably IS illegal (though IANAL) to edit the movies and resell them. But that point is moot, I think, because since there's a market, the movie makers shouldn't put up a fuss about it! More of their movies are being sold! And letting some other company do the editing just lowers the producer's costs.
Think about it -- suppose a particular video sells 100,000 copies normally. There are 5,000 more people who would buy the video if it were edited down to PG level. Here are the possibilities:
I don't understand why the producers would raise a stink about this! It's understandable if they are going to produce their OWN edited version, but if there's not such a version on the market, why not let somebody else buy YOUR product, do a modification that you can't be bothered to do, and then sell it themselves?
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Hackers like the Phantom Edit(or) are engaging in fair use and/or creating derivative works by modifying the film/song/etc.
Blockbuster is not within its right to edit the film it offers to its customers, because that interferes with the creator's artistic vision.
Got it.
When Ted Turner colorized all those movie classics. Or the choice to release a movie in a foreign market dubbed (I'm talking about foreign films brought to the US and only released dubbed by the distributor).
The owner of the rights to the film can do with it what he choses. Simple.
Turner owned those reels of movies and he did what he wanted. Of course the public backlash stopped it in the end.
Similarly local distributors in a country count as the owner's proxy in those states. But the general dislike of dubbing has stopped them from releasing dubbed versions of Crouching Tiger and Life is Beautiful. Of course it has also limited the distribution of foreign movies (the assumption being people don't like dubbing but only film critics like to read subtitles so you can only release it in art houses).
Like an earlier poster said, anyone who doesn't own rights to a movie but works on it is just an employee.
A good example is Fox owning the original Star Wars. Lucas had to buy it back from them. Of course when he did he added in "Greedo shooting first."
Originally Fox could have stopped him from adding it. Later they couldn't. Neither could the LucasFilm employees or Harrison Ford.
Control of the final product is one of the benefits of being a big time director.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Interesing topic, but I would think it is moot. The DGA fought the same battle through the courts when the studios started colorizing and rereleasing black & white movies in the 80s. They lost the battle 100%. Hard to see how this is much different.
sPh
The issue here, at least from what I got out of the article, is that companies are buying tapes, going in and editing the movie, re-shrink-wrapping the tapes and selling and/or renting them. NOT that the directors have a problem with the movie studios.
It's only when they resell edited movies that aren't clearly labeled as being edited - THAT'S when I'd cry foul.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
That makes no sense. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is against the spirit of the First Amendment to make and distribute derivative works. No one is stopping the original from being distributed here.
It's done all the time. Blockbuster's the biggest offender (in more ways than one). Really. Most all the movies there for rental are edited, in some it's subtle, some it's dramatic.
Which is why anyone who likes movies should be using www.netflix.com, or their local *real* video store.
Yeah -- they can rent edited movies, and do whatever they want... but there should damn well be a label on them. "This has been edited" etc.... most people don't realize that there're scenes | shots | lines | etc missing.
Funny thing... CA Senator Boxer proposed a law on this a while back, iirc, but withdrew it when the studios balked. Would have required space on the boxes for comments from the producers, directors, and _cinematographers_.... but the $$$$ from the major rental chains (Bbuster / H'wood) was apparently more copious than that from directors and film buffs.
Of course, we can have the "why is sex edited out, but violence fine" discussion some other time.
There is a large enough market here to justify the additional cost. There are a variety of companies in Utah that have sprung up to fill this need. The company in question has found people all over the country that want to see cleaned up movies. If Hollywood would simply provide the toned down versions that they have already made of these movies on DVD they could realize additional revenue.
This is not censorship. Censorship is when someone else decides what you get to watch. This is consumers deciding for themselves that they don't want to view particular content. I doubt that many /.ers can respect that, but they should be able to see the difference.
Certainly if I buy a book I am free to rip out any pages that I want. The magic of DVDs allows you to "rip out pages" without doing so permanently. Why hasn't this technology been supported by Hollywood?
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Ok, very important. Read the article.
It is not about the right of the consumer to edit films.
It is about the right of the director to have some control over the final edit of films to avoid butchered versions of his vision.
So posts about The Phantom Edit are off topic.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I have the right to mutulate my book, to take pages out and freaking burn them, to draw on pages etc.etc.etc. becuase it is MY COPY now. I am not doing it to a library book, I am NOT reselling the book.
The same with anything. If I buy a Leonardo Davinci's Madonna for X millions of dollars, I can then freaking burn for all I care - but this is a more questionable deed since we agree there is only ONE Madonna, even though we can make copies of it.
However, when I buy a DVD I cannot make extracts of it? What if I want to use it for some critics class or for the sake of making a parody? What if I just want to copy a portion of this DVD to a tape and only watch that portion of the movie later because that is the only portion of the movie that I like and that is the only reason why I bought the freaking DVD on the first place?
I do not know much about Utah and why they do not like nude scenes in Titanic (mormons live there, don't they?) but I believe they have all rights to do as they will with their copies of DVD and if there is a company that helps them to custrate that DVD and make a different version of that DVD for their OWN use, then screw MPAA and all their lawyers, let them try and enforce it. If this is enforcable then noone should be able to take a newspaper apart and only read portions of it.
You can't handle the truth.
I dont have a problem with editing films for TV, as long as the fact that there are edits is clearly stated before the film is shown.
In the UK, they cut everything, including Star Trek (removing references to the IRA for example) and they do not state before a film or show is aired that they have made cuts.
This amounts to false advertising. If they advertise that a film is to be shown, this means the film as released by the studio / director. If any edits have been made, then this is NOT the same film, but a corrupted version, and it should be clearly marked as such.
If people in the UK knew just how many cuts were made to TV broadcasts of films and shows (by a simple "edited for television" at the beginning) they would be outraged.
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How many people can honestly say their lives are better because they've never heard 'fuck' on TV?
Many people who watched the live coverage of 9/11 heard 'fuck' on TV several times...
I have to say that anyone who requests censoring their owned art to remove the 'offending' parts is intolerant and probably doomed to be uncultured and ignorant. But whatever. Thats their perogative. Should we prevent people from 'splicing' their VHS tapes?
It's totally understandable that the artists in question would fight to ensure that their vision remains unedited for two reasons:
1) Control over product. It's understantable in an artistic medium - its not like a car, where if you can make the product go faster, after-market, good for you. Art is a message (even if its an uncomplicated, shallow message), and to fuck with it is to fuck with the message.
2) Money. If I'm artist X, and I think most people who are seeing my work through word-of-mouth are seeing edited copies, I'd be upset that other people's editing of my product could be influencing potential customers' decision to purchase my movie. (After all, it's not too uncommon to hear somebody say things like, "Yeah, the movie sucked, but I own it cause of that scene where that chicks not wearing anything." or whatever. Sometimes the offensive bits sell the product.")
That being said, since people have always been free to splice VHS cassettes themselves, etc, I really think its a battle that should be fought only to present the issues directors have with it. I really do believe its unethical to edit art yourself, beyond editing that must take place for logistical reasons ('narrowed for TV' is a legit reason, 'took out bad language' is legit if it doesn't impact the artistic message).
I remain steadfast in my opinion that those who wish to edit their art should grin 'n bare the 'bad stuff', or look for new art altogether.
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Did you even read the article? No, who the hell am I kidding? You're an AC.
They aren't selling edited videos. You have to buy the video and take it to them to have it edited. They only edit copies already purchased.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Who the hell is this guy to determine what should and should not be in a particular movie? I'd hate to see his version of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut -- it'd be about half an hour long.
It's bad enough already that anything anyone could possibly consider objectionable gets cut out for TV broadcast. I'm sure this guy would love it if Walmart decided to start selling only his censored versions of movies in their stores, to avoid the inevitable objections of several random parents.
Why is it o hard for people to pay artists for their work and further more leave their art the way it was intended to be?
This attitude that consumers have a say so in the art artists create is going to destroy art in this country. It's already been eroded by the FCC and religious groups.
TV shows like NYPD can't even say "bitch" on TV with out having a picket line in front of their studio. How much money has the FCC made this year in fines from radio show hosts who step over the line?
So what, movies are edited for TV because the FCC demands it and because the networks need them to fit their 2 hour fixed time slot. God forbid someone test the possibility of extending a movie 3 minutes past the 2 hour mark. The only network I see stepping out of the norm is USA, but they still censor every possible word(I heard "sucks" get censored to "stinks" the other night).
Why cant I just turn the TV on, that I paid for, to watch a service for which I pay for with out a billion ads that i dont want to see cluttering up an artists ACTUAL work? i dont care if a movie is 2 hours long or 2:18 minutes long. If it's enjoyable I will watch it.
Art on TV is degrading into "Big Brother" and "Jerry Springer" shows with an abundance of regurgitated nonsense such as the "Osbournes" on MTV and now that ex playboy bunny's reality TV show. I'm sick of it. The only shows worth a damn anymore are on HBO and even those seriously test my patience.
end of rant
Get cable.
Seriously. Last night I spent over half an hour watching the Playboy channel before realizing it was actually Cinemax.
Yes, that is a good question. Though taking out scenes from a movie, and replacing swear words with obviously faked dubs just to put it on tv isn't really considered derivative work. But, what about things like the Phantom Edit? It basically changes the whole movie. Where does it begin and where does it end?
I personally think the artistic integrity of the director (yes, I do consider a small percentage of films today art) is very important whether it is derivative or not. Also, I dislike censorship. I live in Canada, and they show movies unedited with swearing and nudity (for example, The People Versus Larry Flynt (funny movie, but I do not consider it art)). I don't think that any movie should be censored at all. If you want to show something on tv, either show it from beginning to end unedited or show nothing at all. It is quite pathetic to watch channels like TBS (from the US) that have the runtimes reduced by 20 minutes on movies because of cut scenes.
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I, for one, would like to see some heads roll for those who edit movies for TV or edit movies and resell them edited. This, to me, is a violation of the director's/writer's vision and intent. Edited LOTR for content? I convulse.
I am sick and tired of parents not taking good responsibility for their kids. You know what? Some movies are not meant for kids to watch. PERIOD. If you can't "get over" that fact, mommy, daddy, then learn to deal with the consequences.
I'm also tired of parents thinking that their children are naive. Where did this idea come in? That your children are virgin, clean, pure, and haven't ever heard the word, "fuck", at the age of 9? Like hell.
I watched lots of movies with questionable content when I was a kid. I didn't see a lot because my parents objected to them, so I didn't see them at all, not some farked up edited piece of dung. I had to wait till I was of a maturity level high enough to handle it properly. I was constantly reminded by my parents that, "This is not acceptable in our house or in public, no matter what the movies say." I understood, I followed.
Learn to be a good parent and quit blaming the depravity of society on the artists.
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Okay, imagine this. Invent a DVD player into which you could download edit information, alternate sound tracks, etc. into and then use that to play the movie. You would still need the original DVD, but it could be programmed to play whatever edit you want.
I envision it to be like a diff file. Play this track from x time to y time, etc. Use this home grown soundtrack instead of the original. This way you are not modifying the movie at all, but you still get to watch the Phantom Edit, or whatever in the privacy of your own home.
Legally I don't see how the MPAA could have a problem with it because you are not really modifying the movie, the DVD player is doing it on the fly.
Any DVD hackers want to take this on?
-Matt
Opening credits roll...
Flash of light, Samuel L. Jackson says "Hey, you..."
Closing credits roll...
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
They can have my gun^H^H^HWALKIE TALKIE when they pry it out of my cold dead hands!
But Coolidge and other filmmakers argue the films are the creative property of the filmmakers and cannot be altered without permission. A person who is troubled by the content of a film should simply not watch it. Censoring it even temporarily is not an option, she argues. "We are talking about a technology that obliterates the intention of a movie. Parents can control what their child sees by not allowing it in the house."
Here's an analogy for those of you who aren't as familiar with filmmaking. Suppose you develop a schnazzy new algorithm for sorting through your company's client database. You toil over this thing for months until you've tweaked it to the point that it will not run any faster. You go to lunch, celebrating the fact that the method is a good as it can be. When you get back from lunch, you find that the asshole intern the company hired has taken your code out of CVS, changed the display parameters, and made it look like it ran a few millis faster. Now he looks like a god and you look like the asshole.
Films are not things that spring up overnight. Essentially, from a director's view, these "editors" are amateurs who are detracting from the movie's message. Whether that message is "Elizabeth Berkley can't act, but she CAN be nude," or "Tom Hanks is a fine father and hitman." is completely irrelevant. Choosing one movie to edit and not another hurts ALL films.
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
If someone wants to get a version of a film "edited for reactionary right-wing christian fundamentalists", so what. As long as it is clearly labeled that it is an edited version and is not "sanctioned" by the film makers, it shouldn't be a problem.
-- Will program for bandwidth
It's interesting that, at least in the music industry, the artists have appeased retail giants like Walmart and Kmart by offering versions of their CD's with alternate covers/lyrics. A common example is Nirvana's In Utero album, which the title listing for the track "Rape Me" was changed to "Waif Me".
I guess only when it involves sales, it's an issue with the record companies.
Perhaps movie companies don't care as much about editing movies for retailers because they usually premiere and make the big money in theaters?
This ranks up there with "loosing" money in the stock market.
Travesty
1. An exaggerated or grotesque imitation, such as a parody of a literary work.
2. A debased or grotesque likeness: a travesty of justice
Actually the publishers and film makers still get money, because the stores don't just make new copies, they still have to pay for original copies and then modify them themselves. I think the real issue is that the publishers and such don't want the companies to be able to change their works of art from the original form.
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.
just a clarification to the orignal point. I didn't spot that you were referring to a print/reproduction
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
I agree with your statement, however I do not believe that the edited version is going to replace the official release, nor do I believe that the director is going to be held responsible for a discontinuous storyline.
The edited version of the movie will be primarily targeted towards family viewing on rental. There are many great movies out there that children will be able to watch, but a couple of over-the-top words or graphic scenes would prevent parents from watching these movies with their children.
We are not talking about a Disney release of Goodfellas here. We are talking about borderline movies which parents want to share with children, and not feel sick to their stomachs watching due to the sugar coated view of everything. There are very few movies that are intelligent enough to cater to adults and "clean" enough to allow children, at least my children, to watch.
The director's artistic impression of the movie ends at the big screen. His point is made there. If he screws it up, the film won't make it to mainstream video and he has nothing to worry about.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
1.Because *gasp* they may acutally have other agendas in addition to making money on that one film.
2. Because producing an edited version weakens demand for the unedited version.
3. They're afraid that multiple versions of a tape may cause consumer confusion that weakens demand for videos in general.
4. Overall, the expense in trying to determine which 'other edits' to persue isn't worth it.
This is exactly the same thing as modding a video game. Did you not read the article. People bring the videos that they purchased and have them modified. What's the difference between this and putting skins on a closed source 1st person shooter.
Sie ist tunbar!
you bought a print of the original, unedited version.
If you bought 10,000 prints of the Mona Lisa, drew a mustache on all of them, and then resold them, The Louvre (or whoever owns the image rights to the Mona Lisa) would have a cease and desist in your face ASAP.
If you secured rights to edit the Mona Lisa and then sell it before you sold it, then you would be legal.
Same thing with movies. I can edit my own tape of Fight Club, but someone can't sell me an edited tape without Fincher's (or Fincher's production company's) permission.
Slashdot ought to be called News For Copyright Law Geeks. Stuff That Used To Matter.
I didn't think so. If you had you would have read that they are not selling altered versions at Walmart. In order to get an altered version you have to buy a regular version and have it altered.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Who the hell is this guy to determine what should and should not be in a particular movie?
He is someone that a large group of consumers have decided they trust. Large enough for him to make money by physically clipping and splicing back toghether their video tape. If this is censorship then it is self-censorship. A person has decided that they don't care to see certain things and has paid him to remove them.
I'm sure this guy would love it if Walmart decided to start selling only his censored versions of movies in their stores, to avoid the inevitable objections of several random parents.
Where do you get that idea? This isn't someone trying to determine what YOU can buy. This is a group of people who know what they want to buy. They have no interest in forcing you to buy anything. They are not trying to censor anyone. They want more fine grained control over what they watch in their own homes. Why is that objectionable?
Lasers Controlled Games!
Video stores are distribution channels.
Regardless of your opinion of most of the crap hollywood churns out, film is still art and writers and directors are artists. If you alter an artists work and redistribute it against his objections, then he has every right to be angry as well as a moral justification to fight against it. I conceed that whether artist creative rights trump consumer rights is a difficult question. What is clear to me is that a video store is not a consumer, it is a distribution channel. A distribution channel does not have a right to destort or re-interperate an artists work at their whim and then pass it on to consumers over the artists objections.
It's akin to a company buying history books, cutting out all refrences to the civil war, the holocost, and the civil rights movement, and selling it to schools.
I don't see how this is a problem IF:
1) For every modified video that is sold/rented, a copy of the original is bought. This is so that I cant go buy one copy of a movie, change it minutely, make 5 more copies of "my" changed version and sell it.
2) That it's a censored version is clearly marked
3) I don't think additions should be allowed. No advertisements that weren't supposed to be there, popups, annoying floating logos etc.
What these directors (and most likely the MPAA) would like to do is make it so people can only watch their material without making any changes to it, even for personal use.
This is like a book publisher trying to make it illegal for you to tear pages out of a book that you purchased. Mind you, reselling a book in that condition would be wrong, unless you informed the buyer that the pages were missing. However, it looks as if, in this case, there's no deception going on. Everyone purchasing these edited movies is totally aware that the scenes have been removed.
Whether or not you think censorship is stupid or senseless has absolutely no bearing on what other people, with their own opinions, should be able to do to their own property. I am vehemently opposed to mandatory censorship enforced by the government, but I am completely in favor of people being able to use their own property in the way that they want.
If the federal government wants to file the tits off the Statue of Liberty, it's their perogative. They own it.
Personally, I can't tell if the same people are calling foul in both cases...
Can't tell the players without a scorecard!
I think it is fair to allow an artist to protect his work from mutiliation. An interesting example of this was the Monty Python troupe's suit against a broadcast network for cutting unwanted material that an American audience might be offended by. The case can be found here In sum, Gilliam didn't like some bonehead at a broadcast netword redoing his comedy. Ya gotta admit -- he had a point.
Editors: Isn't that censorship? Wouldn't that also be morally and ethically wrong?
Directors: Well, that's different. It's censorship if you're allowed to publish an edited version of our movie, and not censorship if you are forcibly unable to publish said edited version. Don't you even know the definition of censorship?
Editors: Do you?
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
It's the rental/sale of third-party edited videos that is most offensive here. That corrupts the artists' intent, and distributing such material (especially selling it) SHOULD be against copyright, if it's not already. Only the owners of the rights to that art should have the right to edit and redistribute it for revenue, period.
I for one would be very upset to get a copy of a movie just to find out somebody else besides the people involved in making the movie decided I didn't need to see a scene, so they cut it. That's real censorship at work, and I hope the MPAA nails them to the wall. Maybe that'll keep em too busy to bother the DVR owners :)
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
Their goal is to reduce fair use rights through legal decisions.
It is the same with the V-chip. The media cried censorship when it was introduced even though it is as plain as daylight that the V-chip does not amount to censorship, except censorship from parents to their own children which is fine.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
There is obviosly a huge market for prude friendly versions of Hollywood flicks. Hollywood should have been selling its products to this market, but since they didn't, some one else did. Deal with it. To the artists who feel their work is being violated, and have their panties in a bunch, I say, Boo Hoo Hoo. An idea, once expressed, isn't yours any more. You can't control what others do with it. If viewers only want part of your work, you can't force them to view or hear all of it. Deal with it.
How ya like dat?
"It's censorship if you're allowed to publish an edited version of our movie, and not censorship if you are forcibly unable to publish said edited version."
Bravo.
It was self defense!
So,if I were to skip part of a book, would I be in violation of the artists 'moral rights?" Are works of satire now to be considered in violation of these rights? Do you have to listen to every song on a CD instead of cutting and pasting to make a CDR you like? What about my "moral right" to create a CD mix I like? Get real. The artist got their money from the sale, and they can ask no more. The person put up their money to buy it, and now has the right to do whatever they want with it.
I find it hilarious that moral relatavists are supporting "moral rights." What a pile of crap. They do not live or believe in principles of morality, but go about protecting "moral rights" that have nothing to do with morality.
If you own them do you have the right to destroy them?
/destroyed quite a few statues. The world was not happy.
I seem to remember a certain government that defaced
Where did you stand on this issue?
Were you defending the rights of the Taliban or criticizing them for their "narrow" world view?
Just curious
Ok, so I'm not going to get into the whole question of who has the high ground in this one. Both sides look like they are doing some things I support and others that I don't support so I can't possibly make any sense out of this. I'm against censorship but I am for fair use. This ones a pickle.
What I am wondering though is how long before Walmart decides to start carrying "E" rated titles and if something of that manner should happen then could there come a time when enough of those moral and god-fearing retailers are carrying only "E" rated versions of movies that I have hard time finding the full version and what does that mean in the long run? That's what has me thinking about this.
It's a small thing really but what could it lead to if it's given the blessing and allowed to continue?
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Wait... isn't there a law that allows people to sell their stuff? Like... a tag sale or something? I shouldn't have to pay anyone if I bought it from the corp, and then sold it to someone else (even if i put a bit extra for my own profit). Otherwise, tag sales and pawn shops would be illegal.
So if these companies bought the originals from the studio, and then proceeded to edit it and sell that back... that should be fine.
Of course, what do they owe is the question. Should they only have to buy one copy, edit it, and make reproductions of the edit and sell and profit, or do they have to own a copy for each copy they edit or sell. Where do you drop the line between screwing the corp, and screwing the business/customer in this case?
Remember, if you want them to have free reign over selling (as in profiting from footage from someone else) this stuff without some compensation to the original guys who made the thing, your being just as evil as the suits.
It is not you mod'ing your PS that Sony is worried about. They are worried about the person that sold you the 'mod-chip'. It is a sale that involves the PS that Sony can't get a cut of.
If memory serves, copyright allows the copyright owner of a creative work to not only control reproductions of the work, but also derivative works as well.
I beleive an emasculated version of a film would count as a derivative work.
So, it seems to me that the film production companies have the power to clamp down on this if they wish.
Moral issues aside, if the DAG is upset about it, then they only player they can negotiate with is the film companies.
Legally, I don't beleive a director has any recourse - unless he has retained sufficient ownership of the film going in.
Speaking as someone who makes both a living and a lifestyle from my creative energies, I find this appalling. As with any work of art (and while I do hesitate to refer to the likes of "Freddy Got Fingered" and "B.A.P.S." as art, one must take the good with the bad), respect for the vision of the creator is of paramount importance. Once you alter the product, it is no longer the work intended by those who created it. It is acceptable if, instead of renting or selling a bowdlerized version of , say, "Pulp Fiction," it was presented as "A 3rd Party Post-Production Edit of Pulp Fiction." I recently disbanded a very promising group over a similar situation. We recorded an ep & one of the other members edited several bars out of one of my songs without asking and then got defensive & rightous when I asked him about it. That could have been a satisfying and profitable group but I will not be involved in an endeavor where no respect is shown for my creative vision.
Say what you will about copyright, but in this case I think it's on the side of right.
Most of the companies that do this sort of thing are essentially selling edited versions of copyrighted works. That is clearly prohibited by copyright law, and it most certainly does not fall under fair use.
The way these services have worked in the past is a person buys a videotape, then sends it to the service for editing. The service edits the video, essentially copying it in the process. Then they return the two videos back to the original purchaser for a fee. Essentially the original purchaser has bought another copy of the movie from a third party that spent no overhead obtaining the original in the first place. To me this is a clear violation of copyright and is dangerously close to pirating.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. Damn I'm gonna miss that show.
[Please]. The travesty in all this isn't that directors are fighting our ability to buy [pirated] copies of movies, it's that any[body] would try to take the [naughty bits] out of a film in the first place. Don't watch the [silly] movie if it offends you so much. While we're at it let's erase all the footage of Elvis Presley's [inappropriate moves] and file the [barnacles] off the Statue of Liberty. Some people just have no sense...
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
Directors are as flawed as any humans, and plenty of them see no problem at selling out their particular "artistic vision", but I really gotta feel sorry for any of them who actually tries to stand up to a studio today.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
...was the sound of a joke going right by your head.
Think about it. Think about it long and hard. Pun intended.
InThane
In the music industry, making a electro-techno-mix seems to promote the original as much as the new version.
There's so much potential in creating new movies; adding outtakes, new soundtracks, new scenes etc...
It sounds like fun. I think I'll work on editing Air Bud II into a horror movie.
One problem I've got is that the directors are saying things like if you can't deal with the entire message, then don't view it at all. Who ever came up with this take it all or leave it proposition with regards to art? Isn't beauty in the eye of the beholder?
Furthermore, I think it's deeply patronizing--they are saying that without sex scene x, violence scene y or cuss word z, whatever it is they are trying to convey to us we won't get. Sensitivities to messages are different from person to person, some people will get the idea in the first five minutes, others you need to show them the film/book 10 times plus kick them in the nuts (which if you do it once in a film automatically upgrades it from PG to PG-13--oddness of rating system) before they get the idea.
With regards to books, this idea already has standing. Often books sold in the US are edited in a way that books sold in Europe are not. There was much discussion about this I believe with one of the Hitchhiker books (me thinks The Restaurant at the End of the Universe) which had obscenities cut from it in the US edition, but not the UK edition. However, the US edition, in place of the obscenities, has a lot more innovative text, which Adams put in for the US version.
Some people have this hangup that somehow being able to swear is art, because of some sorta relation to free speech (or show boobies, or someone being killed in slow motion, et cetera.) I believe the reality is that all that may or may not better reflect reality, but it doesn't intrinsically enhance the art worthiness of it (especialy for most movies.)
"It's a small thing really but what could it lead to if it's given the blessing and allowed to continue?"
Such a resulting scenario is so far down the line and the result of so many other "what ifs" that it is equivocal to not going outside because you might be run over by a truck full of migrant workings hired to pick peaches.
Besides something rings untrue about taking away other people's rights to protect your own (Given both rights being equal, of course. In this case your right to watch the R rated version, their right to watch an E rated version)
Pretty soon someone will get a law passed that will remove the off button on a TV and make it the death penality to have one put on.
I can't tell you how surprised I was when I rented Clerks to show it to a friend, and found that they had censored the line: "What are you going to do for an encore, anally rape my mother with a ball-peen hammer while pouring sugar in my gas tank?"
The reason I was particularly surprised was that the only dropped a single word: ball-peen. Say it over once or twice, with and without the ball-peen. I think it makes it much more graphic to leave it out. It backs off from the original over-the-top version, and gives a sicker, more violent feel.
-Esme
It's a parenting issue. There are a lot of good movies out there. I keep a really close watch on what my children watch (No TV and an occassional DVD on the computer.) A lot of directors/Hollywood throw in stuff just to generate sales. Big explosions, sex scenes. Sometimes explosions, violence, sex fits into the plot of a movie, but sometimes it does not.
:-) )
Look at the movie Titanic. Fairly good movie. But as a parent that is trying to raise children to be chaste until marriage (one goal among many), the sex scene in the car (on the boat) is very objectionable. What did I do? I ripped the DVD, ran it trough priemere and took the scene out. Did it hurt the movie? Not a bit. If I somehow changed Cameron's (He's the director, you know)vision, I changed it from, "It is Ok to have sex when you are not married if you are being chased by thugs" to "When being chased by thugs it is important to stay alive." Using this same example in a presentation I was questioned about why not take out the Nude Painting scenes. That was artistic nudity. And I see nothing wrong with that. My kids have seen nudes in many styles of art and recognize the beauty (and sometimes revulsion) of the human body; and hopefully with some help outside of Hollywood, they will learn some good morals.
flogger
(name's from the Russian Mig-23 jet, Nothing sexual.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
It doesn't seem to be a question of consumer rights and I don't think the Directors Guild has a chance here. These companies are selling the edited films. It's up to the consumer to choose whether or not to purchase the edited film. The original, unedited movies aren't going anywhere.
If anything I think this is a decent move as parents could now watch movies they enjoy without having to worry what their kids will see or hear.
If somebody wants to buy the lame version of a movie, what's to stop them? It's not like our options are being removed.
I agree that they should be able to collect revenue, even from the most edited versions of their movies. But seriously, who would call a Hollywood movie (and believe me, indy movies are in no danger of being so highly in demand that the bible belt needs to see them so badly that they chop out the naughty parts and then show the flicks to their little children) a work of art, deserving of a moral trump card.
Besides, the original version exists. Copies are copies, and as such anything can be done to them.
--What, you ain't know about them country fried sessions?
Perhaps we need a law requiring the editors to mark their edited tapes as such, prominently and irreversibly.
I don't want to see it. My wife doesn't want to see it. And I sure don't want my kids to see it. It's not even worth it to fast forward through it, because you can't always get to the button fast enough. If the movie is rated R, you can almost guarantee there are sex scenes, excess language, or excess violence that I really don't care to have in my home (heck, there's a lot of PG-13 movies I won't watch either).
If I can't watch the movie without those scenes cut, I won't watch it. But if they offered a cleaned up version, that would be fantastic! Who could possibly be hurt by having a choice between a "smut" version and a "clean" version of the movie? How can anyone complain about giving the consumer the ability to see high quality movies and while following moral standards they set for themselves?
These companies are not trying to force movie makers from making movies with sleazy scenes, or prevent consumers from seeing what the directors intended (by the way, why do I have to see what the director intended? I'd much rather see what I like). They're just giving people the chance to see a movie that's been cleaned up a little, that they otherwise wouldn't be interested in seeing. They see a market, and they try to fill it. It sounds absolutely wonderful! It sounds like what capitalism is all about.
I can't figure out why so many people are complaining about having the choice to watch the original, uncut version and a cleaned up version of a movie. Get a life people.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
You have to buy the video and take it to them to have it edited. They only edit copies already purchased. .... I know becuase I am a prude member of CleanFlicks
Or you "join a club" that entitles you to "check out" (read "rent") so many titles per month with membership fees
this sig is deprecated
Actually, you could technically define fast forwarding through a video tape as 'editing'.
You're manipulating the message of the delivered content.
No more FF and RW buttons on the VCR?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Ah, Dude. . .
--What, you ain't know about them country fried sessions?
to call their homeboys in... and their homeboys duke it out while they shout insults at each other while waiting to see whose homeboys get the upper hand. Murder by proxy... It's the way to go.
I suggest you read it again. This isn't individuals buying a video and bringing it in for modding, it's a company buying videos in bulk, then selling modified. There is a difference.
"The companies doing it claim that consumer rights trump the artists rights in this case, and that the artists don't have the moral ground to stand on because they already edit their films for T.V. and planes."
Did this guy fail to read the copyright laws in the US? Unless this company is given permission to make these new works, they are violating the copyright holders rights by creating derivative works and distributing the works illegally.
If they don't lke the movies coming out of Hollywood then he needs to start a movie company which panders to the tastes of his kind. He has no right whatsoever to alter these works, consumer rights is just a straw man being waved to around to stirp up some imaginary controversy.
Well, that's the first time that's happened. Thanks for clearing that up, everyone.
Even if the consumers know that it's edited, the rental place was not given license to rent anything but what the studio sold them, so it's wrong.
They get around this by calling it a private movie club and then charge "membership dues". In exchange they let you view x number of titles per month with addition dues charged for x+1 and so on.
this sig is deprecated
I think you mean 'Skinemax'
Enigma
Oh, my, yes! I'm a very big J.G. Ballard fan, and I thought the adaptation was very well done. Cronenberg captured the tone of the book , and I think was probably the only director who could capture that strangeness, like he did in "The Dead Zone" and "Dead Ringers."
"The Unlimited Dream Company" is an even more perfect example of an unfilmable book, I doubt anyone could get that made! :)
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Why don't people see this as the free speech issue that it is. I should have the right to take any content produced by someone else and edit it for whatever speech purpose I see fit. Provided I don't break any laws with my speech, then this is and should be protected by the United States First Amendment.
If I purchase a portrait of Mickey Mouse, cut the head off, and replace it with a portrait of my daughter, have I done something wrong? What if I then sell that portrait to someone else? If I pass this off as an actual Disney photo or even something approved by Disney, then I'm slandering (or at least misrepresenting) the company. But, if I give proper attribution, and produce no copies of the copyrighted content beyond those I have purchased, then I have done nothing wrong.
Editing movies may seem like it's hurting the author, but it hurts society more when their speech rights are removed.
Suppose I edit a US Army recruitment video and remove some of the rhetoric and replace it with pictures of the dead in hiroshima, shouldn't this be allowed? How about I just edit out the recruitment parts and only leave the pictures of combat, with the sound muted? Both of these fall squarely into free speech, assuming I only edit the video that I have legally acquired.
Now, how about I edit an alcohol advertisement in a similar fashion, to include pictures of drunk driving fatalities, should this be allowed? How about a cellular phone commercial combined with automobile fatalities involving cellular phones?
All of these are important opportunities for free speech that need to be allowed for true freedom of expression to exist. Editing a movie for content is no different from the above, and in many ways makes similar statements about our motion picture industry. By viewing a movie edited to remove, for instance, sexuality, I am viewing a statement about the prevalence of sexuality in the motion picture industry. It says: "this is what this motion picture could look like without sexuality." That is important speech that should be protected, regardless of how I feel about the role of sexuality in the motion picture industry. Similarly, and edit that adds sexual content should be allowed, again provided proper attribution is provided, and no other laws (such as copyright) are broken.
Let's be honest...it isn't about the artists wanting to maintain their integrity and be concerned over censorship. If that were the case, they wouldn't have done business with a big studio.
That being said...and after reading the article, there is no illegal distribution going on. That is, the editing companies are not editing a video and then selling copies of the edits. They are selling the *actual videos* in an edited form. The editing companies actually own the copies they're chopping. The doctrine of first sale says they own those copies and can do as they please (short of copyright infringement).
Really, this situation isn't much different than someone buying a bunch of cases from Antec or Lian Li, adding some popular case mods and then reselling them to the public. In the case of Lian Li, the studios can actually learn a lesson - Lian Li now sells cases with window mods built-in.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
If Mormons want to filter their copies of movies, it's nobody else's business. If I want to look at the pictures in Playboy and skip the articles, it's nobody else's business.
If I want to use a web proxy that modifies the pages that I see, and removes "objectionable content" (ads), it's nobody else's business. If I'm stupid enough to want my web browser to turn non-link words into "smart tag" links to advertisements, it's nobody else's business.
If I want to watch your movie while wearing glasses or nightvision goggles or on a black'n'white TV, it's nobody else's business.
I ain't changin' anyone else's perception of the movie. And my perception is mine alone.
Mormons, I don't get why you do these weird things to your movies, but I don't need to. You have the right, and I support you.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
So let me get this straight.
Slashdot is coming out in favor of a commercial interest taking an existing product, and for purely commercial reasons modifying it however they see fit, and reselling it.
So when MS releases MSLinux and doesn't release the source, or anything related, the editors here, will completely support MS in this decision I suppose?
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
If it's done, call it done. Painters don't show up at a museum years later to revise a painting. Either everyone should be allowed to edit or nobody should be allowed to edit.
I had a friend who was putting together a two hour feature using only pieces of vhs tape from the floor of a CleanFlicks editing room. I don't know if he ever finished it, but if he does I'm gunna rip it and post an irrationally distasteful movie.
this sig is deprecated
That's not the issue here. The issue is that companies are making a name for themselves SELLING edited films. Who are these editors to decide what contributes to someone else's story? I'd be outraged as all hell too.
Even if the editor's make note that "This film has been heavily modified from it's original version," you've still got an altered work that has the director's name on it. Makes me very angry. Personal editing is okay, because at least then you've seen the original version and you're not trying to turn a profit from it, but MARKETING modified films pisses me off to no end. There's an annoying double standard around here, everyone's appauled by censorship on one hand, and completely against the DGA on the other (simply because they're the big, bad, evil Hollywood people). Get a grip.
Sorry, but at least this time: Go Director's Guild!
"But the cars are all flashing me, bright lights are passing me, I feel life passing me by" - Stiff Little Fingers
Given the amount of self-censorship and focus group re-editing that goes on, it's a bit hard to take DGA's cry of "censorship" seriously. At best, they can argue that those other compromises have to occur with the director's permission; the director still has some recourse if they can't come to a compromise. If they want to push some restrictions about this into their contract terms, then good for them, but I don't see why I should be particularly concerned about it, with the artistic integrity cat largely out of the bag and all. It wouldn't surprise me if they're just looking for directors to score some consultation dollars on those third party edits.
IANAL
If anything, an altered-redistribution ruling would affect copyprotected content that does not include a license, thereby being subjected to the default copyright/fair use rules.
Licenses exist to change these rules, overriding the default copyright/fair use rules, hence why software companies are able to insert all of those restrictions which take away fair use.
In other words, the GPL is like a contract. (I'm not sure of the effective differences between liceneses and contracts)
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I predict that sooner or later, all movies will be customizable to the particular viewer. Since the industry already has all my viewing habits and preferences on file, it should be no problem for them to fine-tune a movie for me. For instance, in *MY* copy of Attack of the Clones, Anakin is killed in the first scene and the rest of the movie is one long lez scene between Amidala...and her clone.
When my Tivo records a movie transformed for television, with scenes cut, parts fuzzed, words bleeped, commercials added, etc., I would like a service which automatically peforms the inverse of the transformation. Perhaps it would even be legal to run such a service under current copyright law.
Sunset Video is simply editing movies that the owners supply to them. While I find the concept revolting, I don't see anything to complain about. It seems like an acceptable after purchase fair use right.
CleanFlicks, on the other hand, is pure evil. They are selling edited versions of another's works. It's wrong on a number of levels.
- It's censorship
- It's presenting another's work as your own.
If these were books being changed prior to sale without the author's consent we'd be po'd. Imagine sanitized Faulkner, Twain, Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Nabokov, and on, and on...At what point should we be concerned about changes to movies? Would you mind if CleanFlicks changed all of the Coke product placements to Pepsi ones because Pepsi sponsered their moral crusade?
Can they make jodie Foster's character a fundie instead of the Atheist that she played in Contact?
What if DirtyFlicks came along and digitally removed Pricess Leia's Jaba bikini or added a sex scene between Kirk and Spock in Wrath of Kahn before selling the tapes?
This is the type of issue the MPAA should stick their noses into.
Time to get a new girlfriend! I couldn't possibly date/marry any woman that doesn't enjoy naked female bodies...
Coolidge's comments are Hollywood's first real response to the growing -- and lucrative -- trend;
and
The debate in Utah began four years ago when an American Fork company, Sunset Video, found a profitable business in clipping a nude scene from hundreds of video copies of "Titanic" brought to them by owners.
All the artistic crap aside, Cooldge and her cronnies are just out for the cash. Between the editied videos which is minor and the "shielding" which is where the big bucks will be, there is a ton o'cash to be made over the next 10-15 years. Think baby boomers and thier teenage children.
Now if Collidge can get a few bucks from every unit shielding sold or a few extra bucks from theaters that show a modifed version then she is on to something.
Are they gong to try to eliminate the FFWD button from all VCR/DVD units? It's pretty much the same thing. Someone is just paying someone else to push the friggin button for them.
You really don't see the difference? This isn't about the individual consumer, it's about companies editing then selling the edited works.
/.ed -- but I did try!*
Just like a band doing a cover version of someone else's song, and putting it on a CD for sale. (Ever heard the reggae version of "Stairway to Heaven"?) Or doing it in a film (such as Britney Spears' cover of "I love rock and roll").
Now, from the comments above (see disclaimer at the bottom), it seems like one difference might be that in my examples you'd have to license your use. But the principle is the same, and, in the music industry at least, well-established. Why else would there be so many recordings of Beethoven's Eroica?
*Disclaimer -- I haven't read the article yet because the site is still
Filmmakers are successful because their audience likes to watch their films. They can't run around alienating the viewers by making unilateral decisions about how the audience is to appreciate their art. If people are spending money and effort to edit content out of films, then this should come as a message to the filmmakers that they are producing content that people don't care to see. Successful filmmaking needs to involve both the filmmakers and the film viewers.
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
Hollywood is so crapping mad about this because they don't make movies for entertainment. They make movies to deliver their message (pick a topic, war, welfare, whatever...). It is appalling to them that their message might not get out, or could even be changed by end user editing.
Can anybody honestly say that they didn't know a person said "fuck" or "shit" at that point, or waved around an inappropriate part of their anatomy? I'm really not sure what censoring those things is accomplishing; it's patently clear (in some cases, moreso than in the original unedited version) what's going on.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
It seems to me that this is like Ted Turner's practice of colorizing movies, in which he'd take a classic black-and-white movie and artificially color it for the yahoo market.
Some people liked colorization; others did not; and I believe that the practice is now forbidden for films on some sort of official registry.
There are other examples of people trying to make a buck out of maiming other people's art. For example, try and find a hymn book these days in which the first verse of "Amazing Grace" still has the word "wretch" in it.
IMHO, offering a bowdlerized version of a movie is OK only (1) if the copyright holder approves, and (2) if the bowdlerized version is clearly labeled as such. If there is no copyright holder, then the movie should be left alone. Period.
[this
So this kind of thing was done in the days before digital technology.
What if someone developed a DVD player that would download profiles that would allow the viewer to select content level (Blood, No Blood, Sex, No Sex, etc...) and then the DVD player would play the appropriate scenes from the DVD, leaving out the undesirable stuff....
Wait, couldn't they already do this in software? Maybe the movie industry is upset because they won't be able to make more money later by releasing "content selection" versions of their movies?
This type of delayed feature roll-in would be typical for the movie industry. (Think Lucas with the staggered release of VHS, remastered, collector's editions, DVD, etc. versions of SW movies..)
Dupe posts are
Why don't we edit Schindler's List. We'll cut out the Nazi's killing the Jews. The depictions of the naked, starved prisoners treated like cattle. The beatings and the abuse. That way all the little kids won't get sad when they watch the movie. Seriously, some stuff shouldn't be edited. If you go through and edit a film you could change the whole meaning. I don't buy the "I want it edited so my kids can watch". That's not a good argument. A lot of movies are made that children shouldn't be watching. When I have kids I'm not gonna let them watch movies like Braveheart and Pulp Fiction when they're seven. Those movies are for older people. That's why Disney exsists. They make movies for children. So to recap, if you don't think that a movie is appropriate for your children don't let them watch it. It probably wasn't made for them anyway.
Customer: "I want you to cut the objectionable parts from this movie for me."
Clerk: "Ok, give me your Ishtar and $20. I'll give you a blank tape, and we'll call it even."
DGA: "Wait a minute! Ishtar was somebody's work of art! And we all know that a film that speaks to you does so because it was made with a great deal of care."
Senator Hollings: We need new legislation to protect the rights of the directors of this film!
Gates: We modeled our new Security Initiative after the quality-control mechanisms present during the production of Ishtar.
Valenti: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and was later thawed by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes when I fly to Europe on the Concorde, I wonder, am I inside some sort of giant bird? Am I gonna be digested? I don't know, because I'm a caveman, and that's the way I think!
Rosen: When will you pesky customers leave us alone???
Stallman: Maybe in this case, information doesn't really want to be free...
Does this mean they're going to force Spielberg to put the guns back in E.T.?
(x^2)^(1/2) != x
(x^2)^(1/2) = |x|
No one would allow or even argue that it is okay for anybody but the author of a book to edit and remarket a book without objectionable content.
Imagine "Tom Sawyer" without slavery.
Imagine "Brave New Worlds" without drug use.
Imagine "The Scarlet Letter" without adultery.
You get the point. It's not like these movies are released under an open source licensing agreement.
This gets to the crux of the reform of so-called copyright law that I advocate.
- Eliminate all copy monopolies granted by current copyright law. Scrap it, completely.
- Replace it with a legal framework that encodes current academic citation and anti-plagerism standards
- This means the original artist(s) always get credit for what they create
- This also means any changes or edits by a third party must be clearly labelled as such, and clearly differentiated from the artits' original work
- Give the creating artist a Right of Creation, which essentially amounts to an economic advantage they are granted by law. This is not a monopoly that can exclude others (no clearing the playing field of all other participatns), but an advantage, perhaps in the form of a tax credit, perhaps in the form of a tax on unauthorized copies sold, some or all of which is passed on to the original creator, or what have you (tilting the playing field in favor of the creator).
- The important thing is that, while an artist could designate a publisher as their duly authorized publisher (who thereby shares the tax or other economic advantage granted the artist), they can never sell that right, anymore than they can "sell" the fact that they created the work. This means that if the artist is unsatisfied with their publisher they can find another, and the right to do so can never be sold away, contractually or otherwise.
The details of such approaches very, but the basic idea is sound: replace copyright as we know it with a regime designed to (1) benefit artists and (2) benefit society, by eliminating copy monopolies and replacing it with explicit artistic acknowledgement and economic support.The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
...is someone willing to take clean G and PG-13 movies and edit in some good hardcore pr0n.
Imagine, Star Wars featuring Ron Jeremy!
Thank you for observing all safety precautions.
I obviously am missing something. As a consumer, I now have the ability to purchase either the original version, or a version that has been edited in some fashion.
Doesn't that mean that I now have two choices, rather than one? Isn't that a good thing for consumers?
I'm no fan of the Moral Minority and their ilk, but just because I disagree with their edits doesn't mean that my "consumer rights" have been violated in any fashion.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I thought about this question for a while. Why would they care? They've already got our money.
I think they're fighting here not because of "artistic value", but for something more sinister: Ad revenues. You heard me right. If you've seen Vanilla Sky you've already been exposed to the countless in-movie ads for Lexus. Now if they allowed us to control the editing, maybe one day we'll start editing commercials out completely.
To me, it's just corporate double talk. The wolf hiding in sheep's clothing.
eTrade SUCKS
Hmm ... what does any of this have to do with CmdrTaco? :)
Money is the most powerful tool. Quit worrying about the lawmakers or hoping they will protect you. Money DOES make the world go 'round. Boycott products and urgue others to do the same. When revenues drop companies react. Even a Microsoft will flinch if you get people to boycott their products.
The issue in reality is not what a consumer (whether that is an individual or group) does with what they buy. While that is indeed under attack by DMCA droplets like RIAA and MPAA, lets not confuse the issue. If anyone buys a movie, edits it, then sells it... that is MUCH different. In this case, they are stealing. If they get permission, then obviously that is not a problem. However, this Dr. Dre approach is not only pathetic, but goes to show a true decline in our societies progress. If we are to reward behavior like this and in essence punish true creativity, then said two-fold attack will only end up with a market flooded with even MORE clonish crap.
I am not talking about ideas here though. As an example... I believe that if someone makes a short that uses elements (to a large degree) from a universe idea like Star Wars for example, but yet uses no main characters or changes anything (i.e. no impact on the real Star Wars franchise) then there should be no justification to demand payment... unless of course it is royalties.
Please, lets not all jump on a bandwagon of overreaction that only clouds the real issue. Also, look at the whole picture itself. The minute it is legal to take someones work and call it your own, but yet with a few differences here and there... then don't expect any sort of soveriegnty down the road as far as identity go. It is dishonorable and those that are for it are dishonorable themselves. If you enjoy being dishonorable, then have a happy life I suppose, but please don't make high-speach justifications and excuses to cover up theft.
You mean the way Stanley Kubrick did with Eyes Wide Shut? There is a long orgy scene in EWS, that American censors said would have to go, because it was too explicit. In the version shown in American obstructions were digitally drawn in to hide the, um, "action".
But as to the deeper question, "why don't artists just give people what they want?" I am going to translate that to "why don't artists just give people what they are comfortable with, what won't challenge them?"
Well, many film-makers, writers, musicians, entertainers do exactly that. But there are great artists, like Kubrick, who feel they have a point of view that it is important to express. They think that they have an idea that it is important to present to the public even if it isn't completely comfortable at first.
Is this a good thing? It depends how you feel about cultural and social change. American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a book called Uncle Tom's Cabin. I believe the term "Uncle Tom" has a cultural meaning nowadays that it acquired in the last couple of generations. I believe that scholars such as those whose article you can read in the link I have pointed to, contend that UTC was an uncomfortable read for many, when it was published, because it put a human face on the effects of slavery for white American readers. So, yeah, I believe being open to letting artist's challenge our accepted views of things is worthwhile.
So let's say you want to see the unedited version of "Requiem for a Dream". If you live in one of those beige cube suburban sprawl trackhomes, then you only have one choice: Blockbuster, the monopoly. However, they only carry the edited version.
So who is getting fucked?
The corporation (Blockbuster) has decided to impose it's own moral code of ethics, but since they are the only game in town (unless you want to drive an hour to the nearest city), you don't have a choice but live under their ethical standards.
Do you get fucked because you have less choice?
Or does the corporation get fucked because they are being told they can't alter a movie?
So it's a lose-lose for the consumer: either Blockbuster wins or the MPAA wins.
What a fun time to be alive! 1/3 of the planet's population is starving and we're worried about our rights to see softcore porn. Not that I think we should have to do something about those billions of starving people -- I just think it is fascinating.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
As long as they tell me it's been edited, I'll be happy (I won't buy it). But I can see how it can be useful for parents who don't want their kids to see any T&A. Now, I'd like to see them start selling edited pr0n films....
$20 to the first person to produce a movie that can be edited down by CleanFlicks to exactly *one* frame.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Having lived in Utah most of my life, I've noted that the majority of the theatres that show these movies are cinemas in Utah Valley, usually quite close to the BYU campus.
The irony is that many of the people doing the editing appear to be Mormons, (who have a tendancy to try and avoid R rated films). In their strive to be moral, the Mormons appear to have once again done something unethical.
It's one thing to rip an MP3 for a CD you already own, or to support organizations like Napster who challenge the status quo. It's quite another to rework an artist's work (whether music, video, or other expression) without their permission for profit.
Actually, it wasn't the original Star Wars; even the DGA couldn't fine a director for putting his own credit where he wanted it. They fined him for not putting Irvin Kershner's name at the beginning of Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back, despite the fact that a stylistic precedent had been set for the films' credits with the original, and Kershner had already agreed to be credited at the end of the film.
I don't know what the DGA would have done had Lucas not been a member; perhaps they'd have sued him (since he was the film's executive producer, owner, and person who made the credit decision) to put a director credit at the beginning, but since Lucas was a DGA member they decided to punish him by fining him. He paid the fine, and immediately quit the organization. I presume he's still no longer a member, despite having taken up directing again; one certainly supposes his clout in the industry is enough to overcome whatever barriers exist to non-DGA directors getting their films distributed, but I really don't know how any of that might work.
*camera pans away from the actors ...*
:)
*squishy noises and moaning are heard*
*some shadows are seen on the wall*
Voila! censored pr0n.
Don't I have the right to go get the X rated Snow White?
Couldn't resist.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Now, I know this will be hard, but I want everyone to take a deep breath and think about the issue for a second.
Third-parties are editing creative works that are not their own to meet their particular standards. They want to screen out tits, Jar-Jar, whatever. The argument that seems to be pretty popular here is that "we bought, we can do what we want with it." This is true, to a point. If I want to watch my own 30-minute version of Eyes Wide Shut that's my own business.
Where it gets complicated is that people are making that edit and then selling it. Even if it's marked, under what right are they doing this? They didn't create it. Like it or not, a film is a work of art. The entire film is an expression of the artistic vision of the creator. To alter it is to alter the message, which does a gross disservice to the creator.
What would Lolita be without a 14-year old girl (never mind that she was 12 in the book)? Clockwork Orange sans violence. Armageddon with no asteroid?
A film is not just some montage of scenes pieced together for you viewing. It has a point, maybe a moral--it's going somewhere. At the very least it is telling a story that has certain nuances.
My point is simple: the art is being altered and then being sold. Even if it's marked as edited, it's being sold under the original title. Let's say that Titanic is edited to remove the lovemaking between Winslet and DiCaprio? Is it still a James Cameron film? Hard to say, really, because you aren't seeing what he intended. Think about that, for a second. Consumer rights this, consumer rights that--what about artistic rights?
~Chazzf
No statement is true, not even this one.
That's correct. But then why did you represent what they're doing as follows:
If you wrote a book, and your publisher told you to take out a sex scene because they wanted to sell it at Wal-Mart, you'd probably do it, even if you didn't want to. But wouldn't you be furious if someone out in Utah took out a bunch more stuff out then republished it, without your permission or even knowledge?
The two statements don't go together. An accurate analogy (and not particularly helpful for you), would be if they bought books in bulk. Ripped out the 7, 112th & 117th pages, and then sold it again, using the fact that those pages have been pre-ripped out as a selling feature.
Perhaps we should have a mattress tag attached to our videos and novels that says we can't remove them without penalty of law?
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
Additionally, this kind of supposed "crime" (modifying copyrighted works in the privacy of your own home) is unenforceable. You would need constant Big Brother-style invasions of privacy into every home in the country to make sure nobody was modifying a copyrighted work. What if I decided to throw it away, or rip it in half? Nope, I can't even dispose of it -- because that's a form of modification.
If I try to redistribute the work in certain ways, then yeah, he should have the legal power to stop me -- but what I do, privately, with my own physical property, is none of his business. Privately modifying such a work in no way harms him.
Now, the Constitution says that authors are reserved the "exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". Well, this presumably means that the author has, by default, *all* rights regarding his created work, and anyone else has none. You have no rights regarding someone else's copyrighted work, unless they specifically grant you those rights...
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
And there is no problem with this, either, as far as I am concerned. You, and everyone else in the club, know that you are getting a "cleaned" copy of the film.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
How about if someone sells you the tools to mod a movie, then you do it in your home for your own use? That's what some of the company's do--sell playlists that, when combined with the movie, give you a different viewing experience. Seems like quite a different thing.
The point here is that they're not passing it off as the same movie. No one is being tricked into thinking they bought the original version - these versions are being specifically requested by the consumer.
Exactly. This just needs to be posted a few more times so that more people can see it.
These aren't derivative works, in that the other companies are claiming IP rights to the modified versions and selling them as "their own" movies. People (bashful, or maybe with wussie kids) seek out these companies who will modify the media they've already bought, or pay the companies specifically for the service of providing them with an edited version that does not contain the content they find objectionable. This is NOT censorship. Censorship would be one of these companies or the government blocking out the content in question without the knowledge/consent of the customers, and trying to pass it off as though this is the actual unmodified work. Nowhere does it say anything about people doing this. The movies are marked as edited, and are edited in specific ways as requested directly by the customer who is buying them.
This is just an even more absurd attempt to exercise power over the masses by the MPAA. And why don't they get it through their thick skulls that all these stupid things they're trying to do will only HURT their sales?? They actually fucking argued that "the films are the creative property of the filmmakers and cannot be altered without permission. A person who is troubled by the content of a film should simply not watch it. Censoring it even temporarily is not an option. ... Parents can control what their child sees by not allowing it in the house."
So they're basically telling people that, "instead of paying us full price for a product we made, and then paying somebody else to make it more convenient for you to skip past the parts you don't want to see, you should simply not pay us any money at all and not view any of the movie whatsoever." ...and thereby missing out on the all important 'artistic message' entirely. They're actually telling people to not buy their movies, instead of making simple modifications that would make them acceptable! But of course it's Napster's fault that movie sales are down...
And where the fuck are these people getting Blockbuster from?? It's not mentioned in the article at all! Nobody said Blockbuster was editing movies and renting them under the guise of being the original movies. Stop filling in the blanks with whatever pops up in your head people, and read the fuckin article!
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
I'll start with the easiest one first. The options within the DVD are contained within the product. The pokemon cards are well differentiated as to the cards themselves, people are expected to buy more than one, and when it comes to packaging...most of the time people expect that they don't know which cards they are specifically getting...as for the 20th aniversary version of Star Wars...20 years between revisions? That's time enough for a whole new market of consumers, and as I understand it, they're only selling the newer version now. And as for the quarters... all of them have the same value as they are intended for use in trade, not a product and not the same as the rest of these items.
Glad to be of service!
InThane
For instance, if somebody drew a mustache on Mona Lisa prints, and sold those, you could raise an entire generation of folks who threw out what was good about the Mona Lisa because Leonardo's mustache drawing abilities were clearly sub-par.)
What if you editted the moustache off of Marcel Duchamp's DaDa masterpiece L.H.O.O.Q? And can Duchamp's estate sue warhol's over his L.H.O.O.Q?
You're painting with a broad brush there. Please take note that it is just The Directors that are raising a stink about this. The movie studios are "just keeping an eye on it." Which I take to mean that they see that every expurgated version that gets sold is still a sale for them. And I think that if the demand is high enough, and the directors don't have enough power to stop them, the studios will offer their own E versions and cut out the middle men in the future.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Thus, I think this would be fine if you labeled it something like "A Clockwork Orange- Cut Version", or "Censored Version", or something else to make it obvious that it's different. And this should be a part of the title, not some fine print text on the bottom of the box.
I don't like the idea of all these "uncut versions" of movies going around, because wasn't the "uncut" version the original movie to start with? The label should be put on the censored versions.
--
grep "xercist"
Walmart did carry an edited version of the computer game Sacrifice , the normal version was rated "M" and the Walmart version was rated "T." I believe it was an experiment. Of course, Sacrifice was a financial failure (though a critical success) and I noticed that the "M" version, packaged with Messiah was selling in Walmart as shovelware.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Wasn't a feature of DVD players to be able to use the rating set in the DVD player and edit the film (or select which film parts to cut or display alternate) dynamicly?
I seem to recall hearing about this (DVD auto edit) several years ago, can someone confirm?
Amusingly enough, I got Messiah packaged with a video card... and it was a sanitized version.
Everything you could kill was a cyborg - they leaked oil, they didn't bleed. Nudity covered up, etc, etc.
As a consumer, I have bought DVDs and VHS tapes of movies that I liked, that had some minor items in them that I didnt want my daughter watching until she was older (language, adult situations). Digitized the video, edited it, and cut it back to VCD. Why? I'm her parent, I'm ultimately responsible for what she watches and sees. In my case, I paid for access to the video. I'd love to see some of these "we rated them PG13 to get more viewer" flics released under alternate ratings, cleaned up a bit.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
DVDs already give you the opportunity to select different audio tracks, and switch between them at will. Some DVDs also let you play deleted scenes during the playback of the "official cut" of the movie. Why not give the viewer the ability to select a "ratings" option, where the video and audio playback is modified according to the rating system of the region the disc is in? That way, people who are sensitive to language, but aren't bothered much by violence, can modify the film to their personal tastes. For example, instead of hearing "Yippie Kai-yay, mother fscker" in Die Hard, you'll hear "Yippie Kai-yay mellon farmer"? Or, if it's vice-versa, have the disc skip any sections of the film that, say, is R-level violence, such as head shots, but leave the PG-13 violence, such as the rest of the gun-play. Also, it would be great for parents - the DVD player can lock certain discs into a certain rating unless the correct password is entered. How many times have you heard "It was a great movie, except for too much language" or "too much blood/gore", etc. Give the consumer a choice!
Movie studios already release "for-TV" and "for-airlines" edits of their movies, so keeping "artistic integrity" is a moot point. My fear is that the argument of "artistic integrity" and "censorship" is just a smoke screen, and that the underlying issue is control and concern for loss of box office revenue. If that is the case, nothing will ever change with the technology.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
From a showing of "Gone with the Wind" at the Springfield Retirement Castle:
Scarlett O'Hara: "Oh, Rhett! Rhett! Oh, Rhett! Where will I go? What'll I do?"
Rhett Butler: "Frankly, my dear, I love you, let's remarry!"
THE END
(Edited for Seniors)
From "The Old Man and the C Student," 1999.
~Philly
The problem with stuff like this is that someone could conceivably remove key scenes from something like Schindler's list, and make it look like, hey - Hitler wasn't such a bad guy after all or that the holocaust didn't happen. Eg. Guard hits prisoner. Prisoner fights back. (delete first scene). Guard shoots prisoner.
My first post was supportive of the DGA's efforts.
However, Hollywood is probably the most guilty party when it comes to bastardizing source material. I listed three books in my first post, Tom Sawyer, Brave New Worlds and the Scarlet Letter. On reflection, everyone of these great books have been totally reinvented on celluloid.
In fact, most of my favorite books have been chopped by tinsletown:
The Postman took the title character and made him into one of the most unlikeable heroes ever. In the book it was mistaken identity in the movie he was a complete fraud.
Starship Troopers took infantry to the extreme, where a single soldier commanded miles of terrain. In the movie it was mob left, mob right, mob runaway. Even the starships were a mob in space.
So in hindsight I have to say "Screw em!".
How is the ability to edit a film different than the right to fork? It seems that as long as I'm selling/giving my modification to someone who already has a copy of the original work (or I buy an extra copy so that they do) then I don't see why I shouldn't be able to distributute my modifications. Should copyright law be so strong as to stop this "right of fork?" Admittedly, the modification should probably be clearly marked as such... but this is a detail.
I wish they would stop censoring/editing anime...
It's really frustrating...
Woah. Being English I have never heard of this company before but I do kind of have problems with it.
:)
My general stance is the whole situation is kinda messed up. It is just SO subjective as soon as you start cutting stuff out you might never be able to stop.
From a brief trip to the site my favourite example is from their jive about Aliens (Special Edition) (in plain or special one of my favouritist films ever).
"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."
However, they also cut a bunch of stuff out themselves, which presumably vectors the film back to its original emotional impact state or something
This is, of course, assuming they're labeled as such, because otherwise it's probably fraud against the consumers. But I can buy a copy of Titanic, tape five minutes of a drum solo into the middle of it, and legally rent it to people as 'The Titanic with five minutes of a drum solo in the middle'.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
European law has broad "moral right", but U.S. law does is much narrower. This is probably good. It gets rid of the argument that removing commercials violates the moral right of the corporate author of the derived work of a TV broadcast.
Just a quick comment on Eyes Wide Shut.
Kubrick is dead. He died before post-production was completed on that film. I think that Eyes Wide Shut isn't a good example here for two reasons relating to this.
The first problem is that Kubrick was not around to defend himself. The studio saying "Kubrick would have wanted it this way" is nowhere near as powerful as Kubrick himself making the same claim, especially in the face of commercial pressures of an expensive film featuring two of the hottest actors in the business at the time.
Second is that I don't think Eyes Wide Shut was edited quite the way he would have wanted it regardless. I know that when I first saw it (international version, without the "Austin Powers" version of the orgy scene), I had worked out the big secret half an hour before it was revealed, and was almost literally looking at my watch in the intervening time. That's never happened to me with my first viewing of a Kubrick film before. I suspect that if some of the trademark "nothing time" had been edited down a bit more, my brain would have been sufficiently occupied that the ending would have affected me better. I further suspect that Kubrick knew this, and filmed too much because he didn't know which bit of "nothing time" was best to cut down until he saw it in situ. (All screenwriters and directors know this, by the way. Average-length shooting scripts are almost always 20 pages too long, which gives the editor some room.)
Having said that, I agree with the rest of your post. :-)
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Does this mean I can't use yellow highlighters on the textbooks I purchased in college?
It is complete arrogance to think that the only way art should ever be viewed is with the same vision of the artist.
If I want to view the Mona Lisa while wearing glasses that appear to give her a moustache, then I should be allowed to. If I want to watch only the lower 1/3 of a movie by using masking tape on my TV, who are you to say it's wrong. If I want to skip the middle of "The Old Man and the Sea" (good idea, btw) then bravo for me.
If I am concerned that I get the full impact that the artist intended, then I will make sure that I watch it the way the Director (studio?) released it. Mainly though, I just want to be entertained. If I don't find swearing or nudity entertaining I should be able to filter out anything I want.
So if you are grateful to miss the gratutitous scenes, why call your wife old fashioned and prudish.
Its all just smoke and mirrors.
I've heard that most of these cases are NOT companies "offering" censored videos/cds to consumers, alongside an offering of the uncensored video/cd, and people choosing the censored one. I honestly have never heard of someone choosing a censored copy over an uncensored one.
Most of these censorings seem to be (according to my film class' teacher) places like Blockbuster and Wal-Mart who for (their own) ethical reasons choose to only offer censored videos, with little or no indication that the product being offered is not the REAL product. Blockbuster would, for instance, cut out long scenes from movies, including dialogue quite important to the plot, because a booby happened to be showing in the scene.
And of course Wal-Mart just censors everything, offers no uncensored copies, and for a lot of people it may be the only vendor around to buy CDs from after a wal-mart-on-every-corner drives all the local record stores out of business.
You have the consumer right to censor any video you purchase. Feel free. (well, then again, DMCA...)
There is no "consumer right" about forcing artists to censor their works. Offering both a censored and uncensored copy is perfectly fine by me, but offering only censored copies is both bad business and immoral in regard to the artist's work.
You'll know that it specifically warns that the outakes are not rated, and should be viewed at your discretion.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
Isn't that what the trailers are for?
Perhaps you simply missed the meaning and importance of the gorgeous mistress - it was meant to convey that a number of people within the normal population (outside the military) of Germany at that time were not offended or sickened by the treatment of the Jews - even when they were in proximity.
If the relationship between the two had been restricted to a few beverages and a walk in the park, it could have seemed cold, or that the two did not have a normal sexual relationship - somehow dehumanizing the officer, or his lover.
By depicting her nakedness, and their relationship in a manner which would conform with healthy sexual practices (comfortable with nakedness etc.) Spielberg showed that to at least a certain extent, these were normal people, and outside of the concentration camp setting, one meeting these people might never know of the barbary within the camps.
Of course, I could be wrong, but if the scene was edited out, I would never know - and would therefore never even think about this.
The defendant always has the right to trial by jury for a criminal case.
In the United States, the defendant has a right to trial by jury in a civil case as well. The seventh amendment: "In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved."
Will I retire or break 10K?
The painter of the Mona Lisa is long dead, and and moral rights went with him.
Are moral rights for life, or for life plus 70?
Pick something a little newer.
How about Sonny Bono, patron saint of excessively long copyright terms, who died in the 1990s?
Will I retire or break 10K?
This is not a monopoly ... but an advantage ... perhaps in the form of a tax on unauthorized copies sold, some or all of which is passed on to the original creator
For some works (such as a songwriter's work used on a recording), this is already done, in the form of compulsory licensing, but how do you know that Disney won't lobby to have this tax set at $150,000 per copy for motion pictures?
This means that if the artist is unsatisfied with their publisher they can find another, and the right to do so can never be sold away, contractually or otherwise.
What about those people who collaborated on an audiovisual work but contributed less than 1% because there were 300 people working on that work? What rights will they have?
I agree with your modest proposal. Let me phrase it in different, more concise terms that somebody familiar with the law would understand: "Copyright, with guaranteed credit, and with compulsory royalty-based licensing for all exclusive rights of all works, and no permanent contractual assignment of royalty rights." I'd support such a scheme, but good luck getting it past any country that has signed the Berne Convention.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I am not sure the original version still is available for everyone.
Consider someone (sure, this is rare these days) who doesn't have internet access or mail order, and is forced to accept whatever the local video store offers.
I am uncomfortable with the idea that someone can decide to profit from someone else's work while at the same time altering his or her message to suit their own biases.
Everyone should be free to express his or her message in his own way, and I think these people are effectively creating local markets where the artists cannot express their opinions without being censored.
It can be hard for all of us "globally connected" types to see it, but consider the situation of the internet "have-nots".
During the "golden age of film" 1920-1950 or so
More precisely, 1923-1950 or so. I'll explain the change later in this comment.
Today I'm guessing that the originals are tightly guarded, and well preserved.
No, they're not well preserved. Movie studios would rather see those old films DIE. They sit on the copyrights of old films and do not issue reprints on VHS or DVD because they would compete with box office and rentals of the newest $100 million blockbuster. Film preservation societies often have trouble getting the rights from the studios because of good ol' Sonny Bono.
Now about that 1923 bit: that's Sonny Bono's fault. All works first published in the United States on or after January 1, 1923, are under a perpetual copyright. To go around the Constitution's requirement of "limited Times", the US Congress sets only a limited term at any one time, but there seems to be a tacit agreement between Congress and The Walt Disney Company to pass a 20-year extension law every 20 years. There was a 19-year extension in 1978 and a 20-year extension in 1998; are you beginning to get the picture?
help (e)
Will I retire or break 10K?
GPL == General Public License I have no idea what "GPL" you are talking about but it is something different from what everyone else on this board has been talking about.
... with a cool island song!
You obviously never saw Requiem for a Dream. The film is definately not mere entertainment. Part of the reason the film is so effective is because of the things that you claim should be discontinued. There is a scene in the film (which I won't spoil for those who haven't seen it) which is particularly effective because there is a good deal of blood and violence.
If the film is anything over an R rating, most directors do offer two versions from the start. For Requiem for a Dream, it was in the director's contract that in return for getting to make the film have an NC-17 theatrical release, he'd have to do an R-rated version for sale to places like Blockbuster and whatnot.
I guess you're just another prude who doesn't realize the world isn't just flowers and happy songs and clean fun.