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Auto-Censoring DVD Player
Gogl writes "Those clever folks at RCA have apparently designed a DVD player that automatically scans movies and censors them to make them kosher, as it were. That means none of the naughty bits and none of those bad words either. It will be sold by Walmart for the price of $79, and what with the recent Janet Jackson 'wardrobe malfunction' this product will likely be lauded by the FCC and moralists everywhere, though Hollywood is already complaining."
Damn those dumb people, why are they taking the b00bies away from me???
What, are these corporations my MOTHER or something now??
I think this is an unauthorized making of a derivative work, and as such should be actionable under the DMCA. As a matter of fact, distribution of this player should be as well.
Where do you get *your* entropy?
Stupid thing... it's censoring all of my cookery instruction DVDs. It's blocked out an apple and banana, both of the melons, and a saveloy.
I pray to almighty Jesus that all the gun-fighting and blood spray will be unaffected.
I just KNOW there's going to be a hack out for it soon, that will enable to user to reverse the process and skip to just the naughty bits and swear words. =)
Filters out the boring crap and goes straight for the neekidness and cussing?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
now all my porn's gonna be more broke up than eminem on cable..
This is as much of a censorship story as me saying "Mozilla Thunderbird sucks as a newsreader because it lacks a good killfile".
This is a device being sold on the market. Censorship is a word used in reference to a Government office and Government behavior. There is a difference. RCA cannot force you to use its player or punish you for not meeting its standards through capture or violence.
"automatically scans movies and censors them to make them kosher"
Time to throw out my copy of Babe: Pig in the City.
Actually, it was time to do that years ago...
A Hollywood consortium, including some of Tinseltown's top directors, has sued Clearplay and others, arguing that they are abusing the films' artistic integrity.
Ah, yes. The artistic integrity of, say, the excessive violence in 48 hours? Or, perhaps, the gratiuitous nudity in American Pie.
STFU, morons. 99.9% of Hollywood's tripe is about as artistic as my ass after a binge at Taco Bell.
If people want to screen a movie they paid to see, that's their perogative. An excellent application for this is to effectively turn a "questionable for children" movie into something that you, as a parent, feel is sanitized enough to show your children.
Wake me up if some idiot starts mandating this technology in ALL players. Until then, this is just an interesting technology that people can choose to use if they want. Yawn.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I think it's a Good Thing(tm).
The problem comes when someone else tries to impose his/her morals on ME. By censoring DVDs at source, that is what happens. This player, OTOH, brings censoring to the destination. Great idea.
I put a copy of Pulp Fiction into this thing, and all I got out were 13 seconds of credits! Where did my movie go???
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Besides, it will butcher movies, not replace the content with milder cuss words like on TV. If you have ever watched Malaysian TV you will know exactly what it will do. Entire chunks of film will simply disappear leaving an incoherent mess in its place. Imagine (trying) to watch something like Pulp Fiction through it for example.
People who buy this are idiots and following on from its DIVX fiasco it is more proof that RCA really doesn't have a clue.
Of course something good might come out of it. If all the god bothering prudes equip themselves with one of these, it will leave Blockbuster et al with no excuse for not stocking certain titles.
WHY is it unacceptable for children to see people making love (fucking, if you prefer), but it's okay if they see people killing each other with firearms.
What the f... ?
But you have little or no control over this either. You're relying on the good and kind folks at ClearPlay to decide what parts you should not see and hear.
Does their worldview = yours?
Parents and owners of these things are simply decided what they do and do not want their familty to see. Are you saying that I must allow my young children to watch nudity, violence, and bad language or else I am some kind of fundamentalist?
These are tools for parents, nothing more, nothing less. Last I knew parents were allowed to raise their own children. Yeah- censorship is bad, for grown adults, but I plan on censoring the heck out of what I allow my children to see. There is no freedom of speech or freedom to view anything for a 9 year old.
Another way to look at this is as a tool of free speech. It allows parents to further control what their children see whild not forcing entire censorship. I would like to continue to watch movies as my daughter gets old enough to understand what she is seeing on the screen. Most of the time sex scenes and foul language does little to add to the story (I know there are exceptions, like Boogie Nights, for example).
Anyway, just my two cents-- there is no reason to freak out here. RCA and Walmart aren't trying to censor what you are allowed to see, rather, they are providing parents with a tool that will help us to raise our children as we see fit.
[FromTheMorning]
What if parents still want to watch movies, but include the family? This could be a wonderful tool for parents.
I don't understand what is wrong with this. If you don't like it, don't buy it- its as simple as that.
[FromTheMorning]
Why is this flamebait?
The parent was referring to modifying somebodies intellectual property without their permission. That is covered by the DMCA. Why do you think Hollywood hates the idea of these things? They consider themselves artists and artists don't like it when other people start changing their work. If you don't like it then don't look at it or watch it -- but don't change it.
The parent raises a valid point about how stupid the DMCA is too. It would cover this in theory. Overreaching law or good thing? His comment was not flamebait.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I would appreciate a version that can remove all scenes with Ben Afflick in them.
Sincerely,
J. Lo.
Back in school, 10 or 15 years ago, I had just begun learning english.. and the english teacher showed us this movie, hiding subtitles.
;-)
Of course at the end I had NO IDEA of what really happened in the movie. Who the characters were, etc...
But I knew ONE thing for SURE : the f-word is the most important word in the american (maybe not english) language
this is the stupidest (happy mountains) i have ever heard of in my whole (dancing kittens) life
what (singing birds) thought this (rolling hills) up?
if you don't like the (grazing deer) movie, don't watch the (blooming flowers) movie!
cutting it up into sanitized (falling rain) pieces is akin to giving yourself a (bubbling brooks) frontal lobotomy
i just don't understand the (belching volcanoes) censorial instincts of some pinheaded (churning lava)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just give the enduser the ability to censor, and leave the original signal/movie untouched. Example: When the little tikes are in the room, switch to G rated, when they leave, switch to whatever rating you want. Heck, maybe with this tech, you could have a setting to make it all "Naughty-Bits". I don't see it as censorship if it's selectable by the end-user then it's selective viewing. The problem comes in when/if you are mandated to keep the settings at a certain level, or required to have it self-censor. Beyond that, this could help eliminate censorship at the original broadcast.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
I have lots of control. I can choose to buy it, or not. Since I don't have kids and don't mind adult content in my movies, I choose not to buy it. If somebody else want auto-censored DVDs, RCA is answering their demand. Good for them. Everybody wins. Why are so many people getting their panties in a twist over this?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
a DVD player that automatically scans movies and censors them to make them kosher
I only buy movies prepared under rabbinical supervision.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
So, if I cue up just the car chase in "Streets of San Fancisco," or maybe just the rescue of Morpheus in "The Matrix" without actually watching the movies in their entirety, am I violating the rights of the artistic creators?
If not, how is it any different if I'm a puritanical old biddy who wants to watch "Eyes Wide Shut" with a DVD player that automatically skips over the orgy scene? Or "Clockwork Orange" without the rape scenes? Granted, "Clockwork Orange" would be a very short movie if you took the sex and violence out, but if somebody really just wants to watch Malcome MacDowell extoll the joys of drinking "milk plus" for 10 minutes, that should be up to them.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
You'd like to know the thought processes of those that support this?
OK. It's called the right to choose. That's not so difficult.
You want to watch the full movie, boobies and all.
For some odd reason, which (although completely illogical to you) shouldn't matter if you truly believe in freedom (it's not freedom if everyone else has to approve of your motivations), my neighbor's grandma would like to see that movie, sans boobies.
With this product, she can do that. Without infringing on YOUR freedom to see boobies.
Doesn't this sound like a much nicer solution than grandma (Whether she has a good reason or not) pushing for stupid laws (like every DVD that contains naked boobies being on shelves at least 5 feet high, etc,etc)?
I'd like to know why folks like you get so scared of an object that solves a problem in a way that doesn't reduce anyone's freedom, but is geared towards people with a self-imposed religious or moral code.
Just because some of those people are over-the-top and obnoxious, doesn't mean you should be against any product that helps the rest of them get what they want without harming you.
True, true...
But you might be surprised how many PG and PG-13 movies have language that many parents don't want their children to hear (again, very young children, I'm not a total prude!)
[FromTheMorning]
It seems like every film director feels compelled to throw in a sex/nude scene, and the film will be rated R, but only for "violence".
Case in point: the movie Basic, starring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. I liked the movie, billed as a "military suspense thriller." What I didn't like was a scene near the end, apparently during a Mardi Gras parade, where a completely topless woman was shown from the front. What the hell? In my opinion, that's not appropriate for my boys to be watching.
There are many good movies out there that barring a few scenes, would be perfectly acceptable for my children to watch. A device like this should allow my family to watch and enjoy these movies.
Typos... that's just how I role.
So whats the censorship here. I can take a black magic marker and get rid of all the bits of my books I dont like. Thats not censorship. So whats the hoopla here about buying a device to do that for movies that I own. Thats not censorship. Thats me using my things the way I want to.
Today is a gift. Save the receipt.
Like anything else in life, there needs to be balance. I honestly don't think a censoring DVD player is a major threat because it's not part of the international specifications for DVDs. If the DVD player was legislated, THEN it would be bad.
But before you go and blame fundamentalist Christians for this, look rationally for a moment. There's still choice in the store to buy a normal DVD player of international specifications. You can still watch R-rated movies in the theater with graphic depictions of sex and violence. There have been regimes that were officially atheist that have banned such films in the past in the name of information control, and those atheist regimes were very extreme (read: Communism).
Therefore, don't be so bold to blame something that is really a choice at this point on a religion. Until the government legislates this change, don't get your panties in such a bunch. Government isn't even involved in this decision yet.
...this does not do anything with the work that you're not already allowed to do. With the proper fast forward/skip & mute buttons, you could do the exact same thing already. In fact, I would consider it a lot safer since it does not modify the actual copy itself, just the presentation of it.
Presentation is my choice. I can watch in on a b/w television, with the sound muted, or I can turn past a page in the newspaper. That does not violate any copyright law. Even the most 1984esque sections of the DMCA were designed to prevent copyright violations (including tools and information that could lead to such), not to control the presentation.
If the presented work was recaptured (b/w, muted or missing a page), it would be a derivative work and thus subject to copyright law. But since that is not the case, the DMCA should not apply. Next thing you know, it'll be illegal to see a movie wearing shades or with earplugs...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
One that auto-inserts naughty clips into movies.
You and the Mrs are watching Armageddon and boom! Liv Tyler boobies.
Or better yet, maybe they will make better movies. I don't have any problem with films that have sex, violence, etc, if it makes sense to the story. But there is a whole raft of crap that is stuck in films because the "filmmakers" don't think we as an audience will stay focused on the film without someone on screen using "F***" in all of its grammatical forms every 10 seconds. Its unnecessary and shows a lack of creativity on the writers' part.
When Hollywood actually starts doing something artistic again, then maybe I'll give "artistic integrity" thought again. Since most of the stuff that comes out now is remakes of films done 30 years ago ( and mostly the earlier ones are better...I give you the Marky Mark Planet of the Apes as a prime example of just because you can doesn't mean you should. ), I hardly think that it requires much artistry to remake something that has already been done. A decent painter could reproduce the Mona Lisa with paint by numbers, but that doesn't require much artistry.
This gives the consumer the choice... sounds like a good thing to me.
You don't like it, buy another model for yourself.
Agile Artisans
10 years later, poor Johnny gets confused on prom night because he is greeted with big pink round things instead of black squares that he's grown up on.
/. reader he will never have to worry about prom night.
If Johnny is the average
I have to applaud RCA for providing this product. It will make everyone happy, if they would shut up and think for a minute..
Do you believe that Tom Hanks will be happy to have the atrocities of war stripped from Saving Private Ryan? Will Steven Spielberg be happy when Schindler's List is pared down so that Nazi's don't look like such bad guys? Would Stanley Kubrick, were he still alive, be glad that they are taking out the brutal, violent parts of Full Metal Jacket?
Some writers and directors consider their work to be art and not something to be trifled with by some right-wing Mormon zealot working for Clearplay in Salt Lake City, Utah. They don't want their movie to jarringly skip over important scenes. They don't want their movies stripped of all emotional impact, adult language, and human sexuality. They don't want the viewer being left confused as to the subtleties of the motivating factors (which were censored out) that drove the characters.
Uh hello, this is a win-win for everybody!
That is, everyone for whom artistic vision is unimportant.
Man, I hope youre kidding. Sexuality is natural and repressing it only helps push us into closer to complete cultural insanity.
Filmmakers can't even make a realistic sex scene without getting the NC-17 kiss off death from the moralists.
Kids grow up with no positive images of sex, just religious hatred. Not to mention the federal government is pushing unrealistic abstinence and downplaying the importance of condoms and birth-control.
Who is the fucked up culture here?
I expect this to fly off the shelves into every god-fearing Xtian home in the U.S. until...
Mel releases 'The Passion' on DVD and this player will only show the opening and closing credits.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
This is a feature of DVDs that should have been available from the beginning! Why is it that I can't select the "clean" or "edited for tv" version of a movie from the main dvd menu?
It is a feature of DVDs, it's just not on the menu. You can set the parental lock feature on your player, and the discs check that to either show an edited version or simply refuse to play.
Has anyone figured out the ClearPlay "filter lists" yet? The Internet player for PCs downloads them via the Internet. What does the standalone player do? Can you create your own filter lists? For example, could you express the "Star Wars Phantom Edit" (the one that deletes that Jar Jar characte) as a ClearPlay filter list? This has potential.