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Clean Flicks' Preemptive Strike For the Right To Edit
alanjstr writes: "We all hate how movies get 'edited for tv,' removing the sex, gore, and foul language that make them worth watching. A private firm decided to rent videos for private use after having made them clean. The Directors Guild of America doesn't like things like this (a la The Phantom Edit). CNN.com carries an article about Clean Flicks suing for the right to make edits. It's copyright vs. the first amendment as they battle over the right to censor and fair use." Since the equipment to make your own versions of movies is so ubiquitous, it would be interesting to see edit decision lists circulate for particular films.
I think it should be acceptable to make changes like this.
Since it's not the Government doing it, there really isn't a Constitutional arguement here.
Clean Flicks should be allowed to do this. When they do sell or rent these films, they are clearly marked as edited.
Since the equipment to make your own versions of movies is so ubiquitous, it would be interesting to see edit decision lists circulate for particular films.
Imagine passing around the equivalent of a shell script...or wait, no, a *patch*...to edit movies to your taste. This one takes out the filth, that one makes The Phantom Edit, t'other one puts in that steamy sex scene from The Golden Girls Cut Loose (gah!).
It'd require the equivalent of patch for video, of course, but I bet with Unix at least you'd be able to put something very much like that together right now. And then, imagine if Clean Flicks just sold those li'l scripts. What would the directors do then?
(Another lawsuit, duh. Silly question.)
Carousel is a lie!
hell they sell edited CD's, why not movies?
Whether you agree with it or not, Directors are creating a work of art when they direct a movie. They do not want their names associated with something that just any ol' person can come along and modify.
If these people who want to "edit" movies are doing so because they object to certain things, why don't they channel their energy into creating those works of arts that they would prefer to patronize. Why change something that doesn't belong to them?
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Its about time someone provided this service. For years parents have been asking the Hollywood Studios for access to the edited versions that are used on airlines and television, only to be rebuffed with the idiotic 'artistic license' excuse.
There is a huge market for these films, and if they won't fill it then obviously someone else should. There's nothing wrong with wanting to edit out the 'dirty bits' so your kids can enjoy some good movies.
For example, Doc Hollywood is a pretty good Michael J. Fox movie, but right in the beginning it has a full-frontal nudity shot that really doen't add anything to the movie. Clip out that bit and you've got a PG rated movie suitable for all the munchkins (don't quote me on this, there may be a few other bits that need to be removed).
Noone is forcing you to rent these or view them, all it is doing is providing a choice to those of us who want some of our favorite films to be a little bit cleaner.
Remember Lexington Green!
imagine the uproar that would occur if the mona lisa was copied, altered, and then passed off for the original. this is just wrong.
I live in Boise, Idaho, and there's a Clean Flicks near my grocery store. I walked in a couple of weeks ago to see what the hubbub was about.
At first glance, it looks like a regular (albeit small) video store. They stock mostly VHS. Most (but not all) of them are edited, and clearly say so on the outside of the box. This business does not pass off their movies as being the original. Their edit method is to take the original tape, physically remove the offending section of tape, and splice it back together.
They also stocked a number of DVDs. Those were done a bit more interestingly. They had the original DVD case. Riveted to the DVD case was the original DVD. There was a sticker on it saying that it had been rendered unwatchable, it was only there as proof of purchase, and any attempt to remove it would result in a $30 charge against your account. Where you would normally find the DVD was a DVD-R disk, presumably with a digitally edited version of the movie on it. On the disk was a standard CD Label with info such as the movie run time and the like.
While I like my movies with all the sex and violence, I can understand that some people do not. These people are not on a mission to clean up all of Hollywood. They admit that some movies can't be "cleaned up" without destroying them. But, if they want to try, as long as they're not being deceptive, or engaging in copyright violation, I have trouble caring.
Here's an excerpt where Deseret News critic Chris Hicks makes a couple of interesting points about editing:
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Over the years, a number of companies -- some based right here in Utah -- have tried to persuade movie studios to release the versions of their movies that are already edited for airlines and commercial television, and therefore apparently sanctioned by the filmmakers and studios. But it's always fallen apart, usually over "artistic reasons."
Filmmakers think of themselves as artists, but how can they argue that removing profanity or nudity or gore harms a film when it's done all the time for airlines and TV? How are video versions any different?
What's more, they already release videos of movies edited in the other direction. There are harsher, "unrated" video versions of "Basic Instinct," "Nutty Professor II," "American Pie" and many others lining video shelves right now.
(http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,40502585
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Well, distributing the content after changing it is pretty fuzzy, they shouldn't misrepresent someone else's work.
But I wonder if it would be possible in the future to distribute only the edits to the movie. Then you buy/rent the original movie and then apply the edits. In fact you could probably come up with some interesting satirical mash-ups this way (imagine turning a long movie into a 15-minute short about some incidental character). Kinda like distributing a source code patch, it could even include new content. But never actually distributes the original.
They'd try and shut it down like everything else, but morally I think it would be in the clear.
Ignore the legalities, and listen to some of the rhetoric. The DGA is full of shit. Totally. "These films are for a certain audience" "We can't tolerate random cuts and edits"
Bullshit. Look at any movie that makes it to broadcast tv (and channels such as TBS, TNT, TNN on cable) and you will see movies shown and marketed to a different audience. Look at movies shown on planes, and you will see random cuts and edits.
The directors don't care as long as they get their money.
This has nothing to do with artistic freedom. The DGA has shown that the artistic integrity of the members can be bought and sold.
I'd like to see the product being rented by the plaintiffs. Is it marketed as an original, or is it clearly marked? If the latter, how is it any worse than what is done by broadcast and cable stations 1000x per day? Oh, yeah, they probably didn't write a big fat check to the studios.
There are solutions. In some cases, the studios do the editing. They should make these tapes available to rental shops looking to cater to... whatever invented market they cater to. There could be a flat, low cost, fee to allow the shops to do their own editing, provided it is very obvious to someone renting a movie.
But here's the very best idea. DVD. The studios spend some time making sure that it's near impossible to skip the FBI warning, the Interpol notice, and the ads for the next 12 Disney films to come out. So why not program a 'safe for kids' title? Same disc, you just hit the 'for kids' option, and it automatically skips and/or edits the title on the fly.
There is obviously a market for this. First, there are the plaintiffs in this case. Second are the airlines, cable networks, broadcast networks, etc. Clearly, some people disagree with the 'artistic vision' of the studios.
This is another case of technology being available, and large (powerful), entrenched organizations being afraid of it. Anyone with an ounce of sense would see this, not as something to be afraid of, but something to embrace, a new market to tap.
Artistic vision be damned. It's all about the Benjamins.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
August 7th boys.
I can't remember what I had for dinner last night but I could remember seeing this on the main page.
Full frontal nuditiy? How dare they!?!? The human body should be hidden from view at any time! Sex should be enjoyed in the dark. (No, blindfolding doesn't count, that's perverse!). Children shouldn't know how the adult body looks like until they are at least 16! Kick in the teeth is ok, naked bodies are a total no-no!
J.
Don't watch movies with bad language in them. Just because they put movies out doesn't mean you have to watch them. Disney puts out enough clean crap anyway.
There were complaints that the fresco in the Sistine Chapel had too much nudity, and as a result, later artists painted on slips of clothing over the genitalia of some of the characters.
Some people complained that one of Mozart's quartets (the "Dissonance" quartet, if you're familiar) was "offensive" in its use of tension in the opening bars, and so attempted to "fix" the problem.
Critique and editing of art is nothing new, although admittedly I think both of these examples were done by people who just didn't appreciate the clarity of the art in the first place.
yours,
kbs
With one button: the power button.
In canadian law there is a concept called 'moral rights' which would allow the 'rights holder' (the artist / copyright holder) to prevent others from making unauthorised modifications. Note the law doesn't prohibit modifications, just allows the rights holder to prevent you from modifications if they desire. Copyright law in Canada has details if anyone is interested.
(My karma is currently "Excellent," so I'm prepared to lose some precious points to argue for an unpopular idea. So mod/flame away, though I'd prefer to get flamed.)
This is an excellent example of fair use, and everybody here should be standing up in support of it. Particularly for those who believe that all IP should be Free, this is quite analogous to the GPL for movies. The movies, of course, should not be distributable without some kind of notification that "this is not the original version - it has been modified by X person/organization." For that matter, I'm not even saying that they should be freely redistrubitable - let the organizations pay the same fees that they would for the original movies.
The thing is, some of us don't want our (in my case still hypothetical) children hearing every curse word, seeing every head blown off, and seeing every sex scene in every movie. In many cases, those things simply aren't necessary and are thrown in for the sheer gratuity of it, and to give it more credibility as an "R" movie versus a "PG-13." "Ooh, they got an R, they must be really pushing boundaries, therefore this is a better movie." I don't want my kids to get the idea that using the F-word every other sentence is a normal thing. I know that they'll run into it at some point, and I'll explain it to them as much as they are able to handle, but the more they hear it, the more likely they are to use it.
Perhaps this is illegal right now. But then, a lot of stuff that should be legal is illegal. (DMCA anybody?). All I want to do is filter what comes into my house. It's like setting up a filter on my incoming net connection to filter out the things that I choose - it's my house, my net connection, so I should be able to control it.
Ok, my asbestos is firmly attached. Flame away.
Do these people have a dialogue dubbing studio? I used to love those TV edits:
"Suck my (much deeper voice) socks you murderous mother trucker. You wanna mess with me? Lemme show you who you're messing with, you corn-eating son of a librarian.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
You'd need to have the redistribution rights for whatever you put in. So you could cut something to make it PG or whatever, but you can't put scenes back to make it the "Special Edition" or whatever, unless the person you're selling the script to has the scenes already, which makes the entire idea moot IMO.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No matter what copyright laws there are out there; someone somewhere will still violate them. The 'war' on copyright cannot be handled like the war on communism.
Rental movies should never be edited beyond the specs of what the MPAA already did to it. When they hit the shelves everywhere, a good amount of movies are already edited. Some of those reasons are to edit out gore, some sexual content and ultra violence. After they are edited, then they recieve a rating based on the content in the edited version. When 3rd parties decide to further edit their movies; they cannot market their edits as the former rating. Since there is no standard on what the new ratings should be; then there is no way that the 3rd parties can label the rating with the same one as MPAA. They also cannot label it as a MPAA rating. If the 3rd party cannot label their movies with a proper rating, then they should be fined by the MPAA for every violation.
There is no reason to try to take the editing software/hardware off the market. This will do nothing but regress the market for an indefinite number of years. No laws should be put into place that cannot be fully enforced and supported my the majority. Such a grandiose approach is both a flagrant use of power and an ignorant approach. Look what happened with prohibition; prohibition did nothing but add a branch into the illegal sector where the mob made millions bootlegging beer while the legitimate businesses like coors, budweiser, pabst, miller etc all lost millions. Of the hundreds or thousands of brewers around before prohibition, only a few companies managed to survive by selling alternative products. This set the beer industry back by not the 10 or so years prohbition was in, but more like 100 years. The art of making good beer vanished for years and now has only been resurfacing in the past 10-20 years. The same thing will happen with the computer industry. When huge companies and groups limit the use of tons of things like they are now. This includes everything found under the dmca, as well as the new bills that are being pushed in, the patriot act, and every new reg and copyright protection that will try to kill opensource and freeware like microsoft's palladium will only help line the pockets of less than 1% of the people.
Closing off technology like the MPAA, RIAA, USGOV, Microsoft would like to see will not only set us back by how many years this crap is allowed to take place, but for possibly hundreds or thousands of years. This could be the equivelant to the Library of Alexandria burning down.
Okay, here's the deal:
Television networks pay for the rights to edit a film's content (actually, they pay for the broadcast rights, including specific permission to edit for broadcast). Broadcast rights cost significantly more than rental-house royalties.
This preserves the filmmakers' copyrights and permits the network to make edits (though not, generally, completely without oversight from the studio).
Clean Flicks have not paid for broadcast rights. They do not have the permission of the filmmakers to make edits. They have not paid the premium to make the edits themselves. Nor have they permitted the filmmakers to contribute to the Edit Decision List.
These are all clear copyright violations.
If Clean Flicks wants to rent edited versions of films, they can pay the same premium as the networks.
Karma
At least not in the way the poster intends it to be. If it is, then *any* sort of edit should be considered censorship too. The differnce is that they edit what some people don't want to see, but they don't force the edit on those who do.
It's no differnt than somone cutting out jar-jar from the phantom menace.
"We all hate how movies get 'edited for tv,' removing the sex, gore, and foul language that make them worth watching."
No, "We all" don't. Some of us could frankly care less, and some of us prefer it. And of course that has nothing to do with Clean Flicks suing. TV flicks are *already* edited post production (and frequently in production).
Because I'm pretty sure for most of these films it is *not* the directors but rather the studios themselves.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but how can it be the director's work, any more than those who did postproduction, or the gaffers, or what not, esp. when the studio is footing the bill for the film.
Here in Salt Lake City, Utah, there's a Clean Flicks about two blocks away from my house. I know the kid who works there editing the videos. (He goes to Brighton High School with me.) Anyway, appearently they get a ton people who come in asking if they can rent the stuff they have cut out, get a tape with nothing but the bad stuff.
;)
I always thought that was interesting, that there was a market for that kind of stuff.
Seems people are overlooking a basic question here... if the content of something offends you, why do you want to view it?
Is there some unalienable right to watch the same movie as everybody else that is being violated by having nudity/profanity/evolution/whatever shoved down your throat by those oppressive writers/directors/actors/whatevers?
If you want a movie/book/song/whatever that meets certain criteria, shouldn't you produce/write/sing one of your own? And frankly, if a content creator is creating content to which you object, why would you want to give them your money? That is, after all, how we as a society assign moderator points to creative works.
Of course, we live in a culture that thinks adults viewing sex is harmful, yet sees no problem with children witnessing gunshots to the head. So maybe slashdot's moderation system isn't the only one that's broken.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Haven't these Clean Edit guys been paying attention recently? The law is really decided by case history, and given the recent history on copyright cases, it's clear that copyright trumps free speech.
If you want to give a speech, but it would violate or potentially allow to violate some copyright, then the speech is forbidden by law.
There are a number of other fundamental rights that are now trumped by copyright as well. Simply read the case history.
Welcome to the new millenium! The Digital Millennium, as defined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act!
fifth sigma, inc.
... do movies even have to include sex or swearing, apart from covering up particulary horrible storylines? A good movie doesn't need to have various B-class actors to say "Fuck" every 3 words and a million dumb blondes gangbanged halfway into next week. A good movie goes along with a good storyline, good acting and a good atmosphere. The gore bit is something else though, since it's a trait of most thrillers. What would "Silence of the lambs" be without the bathtub filled with blood? (if I recall correctly)
Mind you, this is not a request for everything to be less [dr_evil] "Disney-esque" [/dr_evil], just a little less swearing, less B-class blonde sex and more good storyline please.
Hate me!
These self rightous people kill me! If you are so offended by the words fuck, shit, and goddamn, naked ladies or violence, then why do you SUPPORT the producers by buying/renting those films? Why don't they take a stand and NOT rent/buy the films they find offensive?
I do think they should, and any altered movie or music, should have a big damn sticker on the front so you know you are getting an altered version. I made the mistake of buying a CD at Wal-Mart once! Sell edited CDs if you want, Wal-Mart, but nowhere on the CD did it state that it was altered from the original version buy putting sound drop outs and bleeps over the "naughty" words. Fine, I'll never buy a CD from Wal-Mart again, be it clean or not. I just don't agree with the policy.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
This is the entire point of copyright!
Copyright law is designed to give people the exclusive rights to their work. They can license it at will, but without license, other people can't use it.
Obviously, no one would want exclusive rights to their work - that would make it pointless. Instead, they generally want money. But there's something else very important involved in copyright - the sanctity of the original. These directors created works, and have the right to prohibit people from modifying them.
Bringing in freedom of speech is absurd. If someone wants to show a clean movie, go put on "Pay it Forward". Or write your own damn movie. There is no speech, no "message", being blocked here; this is just saying that you can't alter a movie without someone's permission.
Ok .. I just had to add this comment here.
Since when does sex, foul language, and gore make movies worth watching!? I completely disagree. I would rather see less of these.
In addition, I find that you can often judge how good a movie is by how much of this 'extra stuff' is added in. If the movie is really good, they don't need to add _extra_ violence and bad language and such. Lower class movies often rely on these things, because the movie has little merit of its own.
Whaaa? That's a pretty extreme form of capitalism: Solely because there's a market for something, there's an implicit moral imperative to provide the desired goods? A lot of people want heroin
Indeed, there's a pretty strong market desire for, say, a small nuclear tactical device. You could find a lot of people interested in acquiring an old Soviet one. So are the efforts of the civilized world, to interdict such arms transfers, morally wrong?
Look, there might be a market but that doesn't mean it has to be satisfied. We usually lambaste Hollywood for its profit motive and its sacrifice of artistry for cash. If there is such a market, and if they could make such a killing meeting the demand, then they must be pretty principled to stand their ground. Is that necessarily wrong?
No one is forcing you to rent or view the original versions, either. I'm not sure I side with the DGA, and I'm not sure that I buy their rhetoric about the "integrity of the vision". But I also view most of the "let us do this" arguments as boiling down to, "In this cold, evil world, a righteous parent must make hard choices... but could you make mine a little easier?" If the language, sex, or violence offend you, then don't rent or watch the movie.
It seems simple enough to me.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Going into post, film editors have far more material than goes on screen. They'll have multiple takes, and often multiple camera viewpoints of the same scene. So they can play with how much is shown of sex, violence, or whatever, without losing timing.
In post, the audio hasn't been mixed down yet. The dialog is still separate from the music. So whatever edit decisions get made, the music can be inserted and timed to fit.
After-the-fact censorship cutting can't do either of these things. So the result will usually suck. The timing will be off.
On the other hand, few people have seen the original Star Trek series with proper timing in decades. The reruns on TV have been cut to fit in more commercials than were allowed in the 1960s. But TV has less rigid timing conventions than cinema does.
Copyright law was intended to allow creators to make a profit from their creations, but still allow the public to benefit. In this case, the creators still make a profit, since every edited copy is bought from them before being edited. In fact, the creators are getting more profit than before, since some of the people buying the Clean Flicks version would refuse to buy the original.
On the other hand, the public is also benefiting, by having access to a range of moveis that they otherwise would have felt obligated to ignore.
As such, this is a win/win situation, and should be legal, whatever the current law has to say.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
I think I should start editing films and add more sex, drugs and violence!
"oooooh oooooh ahhhhhh... You're a bad little hobbit."
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Connie Willis's book "Remake" -- a SF book that raises this issue. In her book, anti-drinking organizations pay people to edit out liquor bottles, etc from "Casablanca" and similar films, and then try to break into film databases in order to substitute their "healthy" versions for the originals. Since the anti-smoking, anti-violence, anti-sex, anti-* groups are all doing the same thing, movies keep being butchered and re-butchered.
I think it's one thing to "sample" another artist's work or to "quote" it in the context of another body of work. It's another thing entirely to completely subvert the intent of the author and re-tell a story they came up with the way you'd like it to be told.
I mean, OK, you've got me with The Phantom Edit. I guess these powers *can* be used for good and not just evil.
But how would you like to see a "re-edit" of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle paid for by the meat industry, in which a completely unregulated meat industry leads to magnificient quality, safe and well-paid workers, and low, low prices for everyone?
Even if they were to take another author's characters and write a completely new story, such as with Nora Zeal Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, at least this is a derivative work and not trying to reproduce or supplant or replace the original. It's a respone to the original, not a remake or re-edit.
How about this for an idea: You want to tell a clean story? Fine. Make one up yourself. Create an original work. It's not that hard.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Some of you may be interested in Clean Flick's membership agreement terms.
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
MPAA VS Censors.
Help head hurt.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
it's three minutes long.
Before anyone objects to your assertion that Clean Flicks is engaged in "fair use", they should check out how Clean Flicks runs its operation: About Edited Movies. I agree with you, it's fair use.
If Clean Flicks' editing procedure isn't fair use, then a TIVO's ad-skipping feature is also not fair use. The broadcasters have released their video stream, and any automated editing of that video stream by the TIVO is not too dissimilar to what Clean Flicks is doing: Clean Flicks is simply inserting another mechanical method in place of what the TIVO does in one's home.
It is also worth checking out this Boston Globe article, which provides background on a number of Clean Flicks' competitors---some of which work solely through the distribution of edit lists that you use on your PC or through a controller to a standard DVD player: ClearPlay and Family Shield Technologies.
To reiterate, their current business model is fair use.
I know that religious groups in Utah (Morman country) keep having problems with custom edits.
Usually "protect the children" pre-empts almost everything in politics, so why can't children-friendly edits get past the law?
Something even more powerful and annoying than the Religious Right? Now that is frightening.
Table-ized A.I.
The question of "fair use" doesn't even come up for an edited _original_ videotape. By buying the videotape, Clean Flicks became the owner of a copy. They can do almost whatever they want to that copy; it's theirs. They can also sell or rent that copy -- that's part of the first sale doctrine. Nothing in copyright law says they can't sell or rent a copy after they've modified it. Their practices don't even enter the scope of copyright law. For DVDs, since they have to make a copy, they are on shakier ground.
IANAL/IIRC editing an existing movie in this way constitutes the creation a derivative work, and isn't meaningfully different from making your own version of the movie or making sculpture out of its posters. Claiming not to have created something new at all doesn't change anything. You're still physically responsible for the existence of something that's 95% someone else's material.
(An automobile is a sculpture, its design is copyrighted intellectual property, and the reason you can modify and resell yours is non-enforcement. Known in primitive times as common sense or customer good will.)
An editing list, or almost any sort of list, is obviously going to be fair use. One could argue that distributing the list enables other people to violate the law, but that would kind of be pushing it. The list itself is going to be fair use unless it becomes so extensive it turns into a treatment for the movie.
A scripting setup such as Saint Aardvark suggested would be interesting, and probably even legal so long as if the scripts were used privately. It might not be possible to sell them.
I don't understand why some of you people bother arguing against the "Think of the Children" anti-violence anti-sex anti-Joe-the-Camel types. They are inconsolable and evil.
I have described a marketplace for media at mediagora.com. In particular, I propose that anyone can make an edited derivativce work, as long as the customers for it buy the original at full price.
more detaisl here
Editing is one thing, but there are even sicker things you can do to a film. For example, showing it on tv with stupid little station logos in the corner (*cough* channel 5). Whats even worse, is when they convert a wide screen film to 4:3!!! (*cough* channel 5). This is sick, so sick, it needs to be stopped right now. Screw free-speech, if thats what it takes, free-speech must be stopped.
Join me, in the fight against free-speech now!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
...the topic of parent was "interesting" and it was modded "Interesting". Looked a bit silly.
To quote Jay, "That's the stupidest idea since having Greedo shoot first."
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
At issue here, in my humble non-lawyer opion, is not copyright but the license agreement between the video store and the copyright owner. If the license does not allow editing, then the store would be violating the license agreement - just as someone who buys the DVD then shows it in their studio would be violating the license agreement. Which is why I think the store should be prevented from making unapproved edits.
Why is that important - because the ability to enforce a license aggrement would potentially impact all software distributed under a license - whether it is by MS or the GPL. If the courts decide that licenses are not held to all terms of a license, that would weaken the ability to enforce the GPL. So while I may agree with why a video store may want to edit tapes, I don't think they should be allowed to do it without the copyright holder's agreement, thereby sticking to the license they agreed to when they bought the tape/DVD/etc.
As a side note, people have used blacking out parts of a book as an analogy - one i don't think apples because books aren't sold with a license.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
hasn't blockbuster been doing this all along? From my experiance and from talking to other people I have found that some blockbuster movies have been edited. maybee the did it with permission of the copyright holders. can anyone provied more info.
In all cases, it's the END USER's choice what he does and does not want to see.
Do you have kids?
There are a lot of good movies out there that you just can't show them and the reason you can't isn't because of the plot, but irrelevant nudity, language, etc.
No R-rated movies come into our house, but I've sure been wantin' to see that latest Arnold flick. Would be nice, since it is MY choice after all, eh?
Then I think that I should be allowed to edit your posts prior to them appearing on Slashdot.
That's just flat stupid. That's not at ALL what these folks are doing. Why don't you go find out what's going before making a fool out of yourself in public? It's more like, "Here's a movie, press this button for the unedited version, and this for the one that we edited for your 16 year old, and this for the one that we edited for your 12 year old..."
The analogy would be more like people keeping you in a killfile. The unique point is that they didn't need to manually build the killfile themselves, but BOUGHT it from someone else. Plus the seller offered a selection of killfiles from those that would cut out various levels of content according to some preset standard. Imagine that. And all at the end user's discretion.
-Cengiz
If this is decided to be legal, does that mean that you can take the Linux kernel source, reject the GPL (the GPL says that you can reject it and regular copyright law applies), change it, compile it, then sell the binary exclusively, as long as you destroy the originals? After that, could you download another copy of the kernel source and do the same modifications, then sell it?
There are lots movies that could've been better with proper editing. I'm not talking about necessarily taking out possibly offensive material, but editing to make the movie better.
The Phantom Menace would be an example of a movie I think could have been a lot better with some editing. It would be nice if some the scenes were cut. It would have also be nice Jar Jar, battle droids and aliens were dubbed to make them less annoying.
With video editing technology constantly improving, it might be possible for people to come up with something really interesting.
I wouldn't want to see movies that are really good be edited, just the ones that had potential but weren't able to quit pull it off. It would also be interesting to see what people could come up with. Some might be really good while others might be pretty bad.
It would be interesting if someone decided to combine scenes from Episode I and II of Star Wars into a single feature length movie by some heavy editing. The result might be pretty bad or it may not but it would be an interesting experiment.
good point! perhaps it's some subliminal, power of suggestion, sort of thing.
Editing movies to dub in *more* obsenities, nudity, violence etc.
Nothing better than a cute woman in an evening dress showing up nude instead!
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Then "find out what's going on before making a fool of yourself in public." Read on.
Do you have kids?
No, and it's kind of scary that you do since you can't seem to understand the following from the CleanFlicks web site:
These edits aren't for children. They are for bible thumpers that want to pretend that they are part of mainstream society when everyone at work is discussing movies.
There are a lot of good movies out there that you just can't show them and the reason you can't isn't because of the plot, but irrelevant nudity, language, etc.
What credentials do you have to decide what scenes and language are "irrelevent." Have you ever directed a film? Are you a respected film critic?
No R-rated movies come into our house, but I've sure been wantin' to see that latest Arnold flick. Would be nice, since it is MY choice after all, eh?
If you can't control your children well enough to allow you to watch a movie in private, then you should have used birth control.
That's just flat stupid. That's not at ALL what these folks are doing. Why don't you go find out what's going before making a fool out of yourself in public?
You just made a fool of yourself. Go to www.cleanflicks.com and you will find that they rent both VHS and DVD movies that they have edited. So how do you just press a button on a VHS deck to choose the version you want to see?
I've seen news stories on this. I don't know if this is exclusively so, but all the movies features in the stories I've seen were DVD's
So Clean Flicks takes a copyrighted DVD, runs DeCSS (or its equivalent) on it to circumvent the encryption, and then edits the DVD. I bet that the DVD they write does not include region coding, meaning that they have violated the DMCA twice!
Finally, a good use for the DMCA!
why don't these people just read their creepy-ass bible. I mean, jeez, it's supposed to be the word of their imaginary god... why waste time on movies? could it be that the bible is so boring and stupid they'd rather waste their time on flicks. weird.
How does someone decide, ahead of time, without seeing a movie, that he or she wants to see an edited version?
Everyone has to learn about new movies from somewhere - do the people who want to watch these movies pre-screen the un-edited versions and then decide, "Hey this would be good for the kids if it didn't have that language and these scenes"?
Or, is there a listing in the CleanEdits store which describes the scenes which have been altered in which movies and for what reasons?
Are people just blindly trusting that the CleanEdits versions will be both 1)acceptible and 2)not a gross distortion the of basic premise of the film?
I mean, if you haven't seen a film, how do you know you won't like what's in it? Do you rely on hearsay from fellow sensitives, "You've gotta see Blue Velvet, man, but get the Clean-Edits version so your kids won't freak out about the dead cop still standing!"
I find, far more disturbing than the legal, artistic and fair-use implications, the mindset of the people who would patronize this service.
What are they thinking?
MjM
I only mod up...
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Personally, I don't see how copyright, fair use, or artist's rights even apply to this issue. These videos are clearly marked as being altered, and clean flicks has paid the studio for the film.
If I buy a shirt and wear out the elbows, I have the right to sell it to a second hand store or at a garage sale.
If I buy a computer and replace the hard drive, I can resell it on Ebay.
If I buy a book and tear out a few pages, no will stop me from offering it for sale to someone else. Nor will anyone complain if someone is crazy enough to buy it, as long as I make them aware of the condition of the book.
If I buy a CD and scratch it so one of the songs is unplayable, I still have the right to resell it.
Why do so many people think the situation is any different, just because pr0n is at stake?
After first sale, the artist/ director/ author/ inventor/ seemstress/ whatever has very little control over what happens to that one particular copy. As long as the changes are not libelous and it remains identifiable as that one particular copy, they really don't have much control over what happens to it.
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* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
So, wouldn't they have had to use DeCSS or similar technology to decrypt and edit the movie? And, AFAIK, there's no ReCSS, so the movie would have to be written as region-free, right? And what about formats like SuperBits?
As to the DGA, I think the problem is that the directors shouldn't have signed over their rights to the studios. It's the copyright owner who has to say yea or nay on whether someone is not doing the right thing with his work. But it's the studios that own the copyright to these movies, not the directors or the DGA. And I don't believe that CheapFlicks should be allowed to sell edited movies without the permission of the copyright owner. But they should be allowed to operate, so long as they are up-front about it. (Which they seem to be.)
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
If you counterfeit a CleanFlick movie, then CleanFlick, not the original owner of the movie, can confiscate it, destroy it, and fine you...
Uh, wait a minute, I didn't think that CleanFlick owned the movie at all?
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Most of you here think the DCMA is evil, you think Music and all sorts of IP should be free. You even confuse the right to free political speech as guaranteed in the 1st amendment with free speech which is not guaranteed. The point: you bitch about free speech crap all day long.
But... a bunch of Christians or like minded people want to make good movies accessable to others without the gore, sex and foul language and you all are tearing them to shreds like a pack of Microsoft lawyers.
What is with you people? You just throw away the things you think you believe in to trash a bunch of Christians? Why hate them so much for not wanting to hear foul language?
For the 80% of you who don't even understand what you are trolling for, it's 100% obvious that the tapes they are *RENTING*, not selling, are edited for content. IT'S POSTED EVERYWHERE INCLUDING THE DAMNED TAPE! No one is the rube here.. no one is getting screwed. People go to these stores because they want to specifically rent an edited version of the movie.
Why does this anger you all so much? You sure as hell don't mind stealing MP3's you don't own, or never will. But these guys somehow should be given 30 to life for doing what they are doing?
You group of intolerant, elitist, two-faced, hypocritical trash. Go back to the evolutionary hole you crawled out of.
So, this issue in a nutshell:
Editing when it sticks it to George Lucas or other big, evil corporations: Good, and should be legal, because it sticks it to the Man and the Man is evil.
Editing when evil corporations (or organizations) stick it to us: Bad, and should be illegal because we have a right to see the artist's original vision, except when we don't like it, in which case someone should be allowed to edit it, just not corporations, which are evil.
That pretty much wrap it up?
I can imagine DVD players having scene-selection and editing features so parents can edit movies to suit their childrens' sensibilities....
Such a player would probably sell well if it was easy to use and had decent security (smartcard?) to prevent children watching anything except what the parents deem fit for viewing.
IMO, more power for the parents... less powers for the megacorps. Maybe soceity can be fixed.
blah!
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
Example: Local (San Diego) Hollywood video, 3 years ago. I haven't seen anything but the TV version (read: with ad breaks) of Bridge on the River Kwai in my entire life, so I decide to rent it.
They managed to edit the movie down by about 40 minutes; completely destroying the film. For example, in this edit, we see Sir Alec Guinness go into the hotbox... and then, next scene, he's following Japanese orders. We never see him get out of the box, and stand unbowed. We don't see the next half hour of the movie... no indication of editing on the box.
So, anyhow...
1: it's good that CleanFlicks is letting people know their tapes are edited, rather than, like Hwood and BB, letting people rent "The Killer", only to discover that every single instance of injury or blood on-screen has been blipped out(that was example #2 of crippling a movie via editing.).
2: Due to their use of DeCSS to copy their DVDs for editing, followed by non-personal use of their copied title, they are contributing to the MPAA's case against fair use. This is a bad thing.
---
William Gibson failed to warn us just how much moving into the corporate-controlled cyberpunk era would suck, before metal really could be better than meat.
I'll do the same thing by editing 1 swear word, and sell the copies for $5 each. Should be legal by their logic.
Truthfully though, they shouldn't be able to redistribute material without the original owners permission. It's what they're doing. OR, if they must do this, they should do it in such a way that they make no profit: otherwise they're just taking credit for someone casts hard work.
The directors guild actually made a really decent comment (for those who don't read articles): "Appallingly, the plaintiffs rely on the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment as an excuse to alter original works and pass them along -- for profit -- to the public," the DGA said. "Perhaps they are unaware that the United States Constitution directed Congress to pass laws to ensure that the creators of original works had the 'exclusive right' to their work and prohibited their unauthorized exploitation by others for financial gain."
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
...it usually does.
I imagine directors aren't happy about their movies being chopped up for TV and airline viewing, but because the TV station or airline pays a lot of money for the right to show the films, the directors are willing to cry all the way to the bank. There's probably also some discussion with the director as to what needs to be taken out for family viewing while retaining as much as possible of the "artistic vision". Clean Flicks don't seem to be doing either of those things.
One of the rights you have when you create something that's protected by copyright is the right to make or authorise "derivative works" - works that are recognisably based on what you've created. An example would be a movie version of a book. Another would be an edited version of a movie. Creating a derivative work without the permission of whoever owns the copyright in the original is illegal. End of story. I predict that this lawsuit will be thrown out before the lawyers on either side have warmed themselves up. If Clean Flicks had asked the copyright owners for permission to butcher their films, and (probably) paid a large wad of cash up front, they might have found themselves a comfortable niche in the market. As it is, I think they'll sink without trace, and good riddance to them.
Speaking as an artist myself (well, a writer, but it's the same difference), I can tell you that I'd be pretty narked if I found out that someone had taken one of my stories, removed all the swearing, sex and violence, and had published it as a "clean" version. If you can't handle the fact that the main pastime of one of my characters is the rape and torture of another character, go and read something else. Taking out that theme just to pander to someone's blinkered view of what art should be would remove the victim's main reason for doing what she does. When you finished the book, your reaction would not be "Oh, how sad," but "Huh? Why the <bleep> did she do that?"
Now, if you want to run my book through sed to remove all the swearing before you read it, that's your decision, and I accept there's nothing I can do to stop you. If you want to distribute a "patch" to my book, with instructions like "remove paragraph 523, delete the word 'burfle' from paragraph 524...", then this is a borderline case. The reader has to go get my original book, and can decide for themselves whether they want to read my version or yours. But if you go distributing your patched version, even if you make it clear that it's not my original, that's copyright infringement (unauthorised creation of a derivative work and unauthorised distribution of copyrighted works), and your ISP will get a take-down notice faster than you can say "DMCA sucks!"
Sorry if I seem to be ranting - flame and mod away - but I think this lawsuit should prove that sometimes, even a bad law can yield the right result.
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
There seem to be two questions going on here. Is it legal? and Is it moral? I cover the second first.
It is absolutely moral. They are not passing it off as an original unedited version. They are saying it has been edited with explicit criteria. Criteria designed to match the sensibilities of the intended audience. There is no attempt to prevent the movie from being published, there is no attempt to tell people that their version is the only one that can be seen. Someone who wants to see the unedited version is totally free to rent it.
As far as any critic here is concerned, what business is it of yours? You are not affected in any way by such businesses. It isn't even the director's business what parts of his movie that I watch. He might have a legal concern, but for the moment I'm talking ethics.
Convince me why I shouldn't be able to see an edited movie. I reject out of hand any crap about artistic integrity, or the director's ability to divorce himself from something, as anyone with a nonnegative IQ would be able to know that an edited version is not what the director originally planned (whether edited for content, or simply to put in an extra 20 minutes of commercials). I also reject the lame argument that the context might be lost. So what? If I choose to watch an edited movie, I know full well that there may be context and continuity problems. What I choose to watch is none of your business.
I find it ironic that some of the same people who clamor for the right to do what they want with the software they buy, would clamor just as loudly that you shouldn't be able to do the same to a movie.
From a legal perspective, I believe they are likely safe with the vhs, but may run into problems with the DVD's. From what I've been able to gather, the VHS tapes are edited by actually cutting the offending tape off of the original, and blanking out the audio for offending dialogue.
There is no real copying of the tapes. Rather there are physical modifications to a physical object.
The DVD's are another matter as they can not be edited so easily. They are apparently coppied, however even in that case, the original is rendered unplayable, and kept with the copies. There can be no possible piracy charge, since each copy is legitimate.
In the end however, I am brought back to my original question. What business is it of yours? How are you damaged if someone decides to utilize one of these establishments? I've read everything so far in these article, and found not a single compelling argument.
There is a civil war coming in the United States. Remember which side has most of the guns