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EFF Supporting Home DVD Editing
cheesedog writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a brief in federal court in support of companies that offer software to edit violence or sex from a user's DVD. The full story can be found in this article from the Salt Lake Tribune."
As long as I can still view all the sex and violence I want, then I'm fine with it. Personal censorship is a right.
, so what's the problem?
"Consumers are being empowered to use technology to customize the way they view something in the privacy of their own home, and this makes Hollywood nervous," said Jason Schultz, the EFF attorney
I don't see why empowering the customer in this way would be bad for Hollywood. The customer wins, but I don't see the flipside loss.
Is it that Hollywood would want to sell their own software to do this? Is it lost opportunity cost?
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
Because it lets people self-censor, rather than a giant company doing it for all of us. This lets people who don't mind (or even enjoy) violence and sex to see more of it, and those who do mind can watch the same stuff, sans sex and violence. Anything to increase the granularity of censorship is great in my book.
To the contrary, this is very important.
Personally, I have no problem checking out Kate Winslett naked in "Titantic" - it was probably the only good part of the movie for me.
But if somebody else wants to buy the movie and edit it to remove those parts, that should be their right as owners of their own property.
This case goes to the issue of what do you own. Do you own the DVD and the movie contents inside, to modify as you please? If that is the case, if you purchase a full version of the movie, the artist/producer/copyright holders all get their money, are you not allowed to then take it to some other third party to edit out scenes you don't like? Or if you are a third party dealer, can you buy the movie, edit it, and sell the edited versions with the same profit going back to the original copyright holders (for example, you include the original DVD, and for an extra $5 - $10 dollars you can get the PG version as a separate disk that says "Edited by John's Prude Company".
What if you want to make dance remixes of a song? Can you buy the CD, take it into a professional DJ, and have him give you a CD with the music you bought with the various other remixed music inside?
So while the issue is rather silly - (Oh, No! A Utah Mormon might see a breast or hear the F-Word! Runnnn!), the central idea of ownership is far from it.
Of course, (as Dennis Miller was oft to say), I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
This makes sense to me. This is not forced censorship in anyway. This is self censorship for those who wish to have it. While I would never use this product I can see where families wanting to not have to explain sex and violence because the kid is in shock, but rather when it seems the time is right. Let kids stay kids, and quit always thinking they need to be exposed to things to "learn". A good parent will teach a child a base for everything they need to learn. Be honest with your kids, but you be the parent, not the MPAA.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
...are DVDs with built-in parental control via the disc's menus. In order to watch the unedited movie you have to enter a code from the DVD packaging, otherwise you get a sanitized version, free of any "offending content" via seamless branching.
This will nip the "What about the CHILDREN!?!?!" and religious fundamentalist justifications for editing/manipulating content, since parents can just toss/hide the adults-only code for the DVD so that junior is stuck with the G version.
It will also serve to get the right-wing Republicans backing their activist constitutents doing the editing to stop being interested in fair use issues and back with the rest of the Republicans in legislatively enshrining MPAA corporate objectives.
They'll still offer the non-code-based DVDs to the rest of us, so that filmies and others won't whine to loudly about this inconvenience.
"Everybody" wins -- Mormon kiddies don't see titties, filmies get "normal" DVDs, the MPAA gets Orrin Hatch off his back AND can get back to kicking home editors in the ass.
Utah, and Utah County (the location of Clean Flicks) have a majority LDS community. The LDS faith has been instructed by it's leadership to avoid seeing rated "R" films. This is a moral decision made by the LDS leadership as a guideline for it's followers.
The down-side to this is that there are a number of good films that should not be viewed by LDS followers. "Schindler's List" is a great example of this. It was rated "R" for violence and mature themes. However, it is a powerfull film made to tell an important story. BYU, the LDS church owned university in Utah County, could not show this film to it's history students, due to it's graphical nature and it's violation of the honor code that the BYU students agree to. Given the import of that particular film, I would love to hear that an edited version could be made available for those who want to see it, without violating the guidelines their faith lays out for them. Given the particular moral outlook of the prominent faith in Utah, I think it is great that a good film can be made to conform to the expectations of the largest demographic in the community.
I live in Utah, but am not a follower of the LDS faith. Many of my friends are, and they will either not go to any "R" rated movie, or they tend to get a guilty feeling if they do. A few have made the decision to judge which films they will see (i.e. avoid films with the "R" rating for sexual scenes or foul language, but not for violence). The ability to make a decision that will not violate their beliefes is a good one. I support Clean Flicks, even though I would not use their service.
The MPAA and the film industry need to come to the realization that their current view on the "Ownership" of the film medium needs to be changed. Then Clean Flicks and other companies might not need to face stupid lawsuits or worse, legislation.
it is better to light a flame thrower than curse the darkness. -Terry Pratchett Men at Arms
I don't see any justifiable arguement against people doing this. If I want to buy an expensive painting and draw on it or use it for TP, that's my business I own it. If I want to rip a DVD, edit out swearing, heck add my own scenes, in my home for my own use, then that's my *right* if I bought and paid for the DVD. I own it. I'm not one to go on about rights all the time, but this seems pretty damned cut and dry to me. Obviously distributing the modified DVD or copying is against the law and reasonable, other than that TS for the MPAA.
And I would've thought for DVD that it would be a great move for movie companies to include an edited track and cut of the movie on a DVD anyways - they're going to have to do it for TV, so why not get that out of the way, plus increase the sales of the DVD?
I wonder how the /. community would have reacted on a story saying "there's this company that
wants to make software that can be used to censor DVD content".
Or better yet- "M$ will put a feature in their next MediaPlayer release that will give the ability to auto-detect certain DVD titles and skip certain scenes".
I just wonder how many of us would be on the side of Microsoft if it came to that...
Just because the Good Guys are pursuing this one, I feel that many here are swayed in favor. I for one feel that censoring a (possibly artistic) work amounts to intellectual rape, in extreme cases, which for me outweighs the right of a buyer to mutilate his property.
On the other hand I do applaud the EFF for taking this stand, regardless of the eyebrows it will raise.
Is this the same crowd that believes that once they buy a music CD they can do whatever they want with it? Are these the same people who believe they should be able to tweak someone else's software so it fits theirs needs?
I cannot understand why any of you give a rat's arse what someone else does with their purchased copy of a movie. This has nothing at all to do with offending the artists and everything to do with freedom. It is truely amazing seeing all the hypocrites whine.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Last I checked, the **AA and the book publishers' organizations hated public libraries, used book stores, and used CDs. They've argued that libraries should pay royalties, that selling used books and CDs should be illegal, etc. So don't be surprised at this stance.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Congratulations to the EFF and the majority of Slashdot viewers for sticking to your principles. It seems too often lately that I hear people argue a particular point with some moral justification, only to later hear them abandon the moral justification when it supports some other point that the arguer is against.
:).
To spell it out: the moral is that "You've bought it, you can do what you want with it." (Within reason, of course.)
I personally may not edit movies, but I fully support the rights of others to do so, once they've bought it. Besides, we all know how some movies get a sex scene "tacked on" just to titillate the dating audience. In these cases, the people editing movies are probably improving the movie by doing so.
Anyway, I am even more appreciative of the EFF (although not really surprised, they're good guys) and more impressed with Slashdotters in general (what is the world coming to?