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Directors Counter-Sue Movie Bowdlerizing Company
crazyhorse44 writes "The lesser of two evils? 'The Directors Guild of America is suing more than a dozen companies that delete scenes depicting violence, sex and profanity from Hollywood films, saying the process violates federal copyright law. The lawsuit, filed Friday in Denver, was a response to a suit filed last month by Clean Flicks of Colorado, which is part of the Utah-based rental chain Clean Flicks. The company had asked a judge to rule its practice legal, despite protests from several well-known directors, including Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg. Clean Flicks argues it doesn't violate copyright law because it purchases a new copy each time it edits a film and because customers are technically owners of the videos through a cooperative arrangement. The edited tapes also carry a disclaimer that the film was edited for content, the company says.' Whose side to take? The DGA is defending the desecration of many of our favorite films, while Clean Flicks is strongly advocating for the copyright rights of the consumer to edit and/or alter the media that they purchase. At the extreme you have folks who want to eliminate all traces of sex and violence from the popular media against the movie industry who wants to eliminate all property rights of the consumer. Whose side would you take? Links at Salon, USA Today and FindLAW." We've had previous stories here and here.
Clean Flicks is presumably copying the original film in the course of making its edit. If they win this case, it shows that such temporary copies aren't infringement after all. That could get rid of the MAI ruling, which would in turn make a lot of awful EULA's unenforceable.
I am supporting Clean Flicks on this one.
In practice, however, I get a sinking feeling in my belly at the idea that censored versions of "cultural works" (movies, books, whatever) will be going into wide distribution (not sure how wide, but certainly wider than it currently is should this be judged a legal practice). this uneasiness is compounded by the realization that community pressure will push people towards only renting from the "nice store" that doesn't push "dirty movies" (yes I'm caricaturing, but social pressures _do_ work this way).
I would much prefer that the original version of the movie be distributed on DVD, along with a DVD playlist that can be used to playback a "niche audience" version (similar to "play widescreen/fullscreen").
I see this as actually being a significant enough market that some sort of modified DVD player that accepts a separate CD (containing one or many "alternate cut" playlists for a film) could be a strong seller, with several bonuses:
As far as this case goes (IANAL etc. etc.), I see the achilles heel as being the cooperative ownership aspect. That seems to fall right in the zone of judicial judgment (please correct me if I'm off), and the entertainment industry has all those scary lawyers who know exactly which judges to push the case in front of, not to mention plenty of other dirty tricks.
(In short, both sides suck, and everyone should listen to me.)
Hmm... don't get it.
Censoring someone else is NOT an exercise of free speech, but an infringement of it. You have every right not to watch a film if you don't like it's content, but that does NOT mean you can chop out what you don't like and then redistribute it.
So this means that I can sell a copy of Ender's Game (Great book by Orson Scott Card, btw) on Ebay (Since I bought it) when I'm done. But since the shower scene was disturbing, I ripped those 5 pages out. So now I can't sell it?
You're telling me that the only way I could get rid of this book is by throwing it away then? Aren't you forgetting the fact that I would be clearly letting people know that those pages are gone, and that those people would actually have to come to me to get this copy with a brutal murder removed from the book?
Is it censorship when the people viewing the material have to make an effort to have it that way? Or is it simply a matter of choice for them? They'd rather watch a hacked up movie than one with those scenes in... You and I wouldn't want to, but then again we wouldn't be patrons in this store in the first place.
But fair use doesn't ever permit you to redistribute any copy of the film to anyone else, regardless of whether there is any profit at all, because it's NOT YOUR FILM. It's only your COPY of the film. Possesion of the copy doesn't give you the right to edit the original work.
Hmm... you can't redistribute originals of the materials you buy? Did you check that out?
They go buy a tape. They edit that tape. They sell/rent that tape. Selling/Renting copies is not a factor here.
Personally, I'm squarely on the side of the rental store.
1) They bought the tapes, they can do with them what they like short of selling/renting copies of those tapes.
2) They aren't pushing for censorship of the source material (unlike 5,000 other groups out there). They have their own 'acceptable copies' and quietly rent those out to people of like minds.
3) They aren't forcing their views on others, indeed customers have to seek them out.
After all, what are they doing that a fast-forward button in the hands of some evilly moralistic moviewatacher couldn't do?
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'