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Cutting out the Naughty Bits Ruled Illegal
An anonymous reader writes "Some of you may recall the lawsuit brought by several Hollywood directors against companies which edit movies for sex, language, and violence. The companies would trade consumers an off-the-shelf DVD for an edited one. Well, the CBC is reporting that Judge Richard P. Matsch has found that this practice violates U.S. copyright law, and 'decreed on Thursday in Denver, Colo., that sanitizing movies to delete content that may offend some people is an "illegitimate business." [...] The judge also praised the motives of the Hollywood studios and directors behind the suit, ordering the companies that provide the service to hand over their inventories.'''
Time shifting for home use is perfectly legal under the Betamax ruling. Hollywood can legally go screw. This ruling is designed strictly to stop non-copyright holders from adjusting content and reselling it without the agreement of the copyright holders. If a studio wants to partner with a censoring company, or do the censoring of the films themselves (which I'm fairly certain they do), they may do so.
RW
From what I understand from this ruling, it would be illegal for me to buy a book, tear out every other page, and sell it to someone else. That's a pretty close analogy, seeing as both my actions and Cleanflicks' third-party video cutting are not authorized by the copyright holder.
Not quite. You own the physical book. You can do what you want with it... including tearing out pages, burning it, or blacking out all instances of the word "the" if you choose. What you can't do is type the contents of the book into a word processor, remove certain sections of it, reprint the modified book, and then sell that bound inside the original cover. That's the difference.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
While you might, in theory, be violating copyright law in your book example, nobody (besides the person to whom you sell the book) will know or care. Now, if you offered a service where you tore offensive pages out of books and then sold those books to stores who want only to stock "nice" things, someone would probably start caring.
It's like dodging copy protection (violating the DMCA) in order to make a backup copy of a game for yourself. As long as you don't start selling, or otherwise distributing, the backup nobody will ever know or care that you violated the DMCA.
This is why I only torture pets and then incinerate them in the privacy of my own basement...
It'd be more like you taking that book, photocopying it, with edits, and selling the altered version. And that is illegal - copying for your own use is fine, editing your own copy is fine, it's when your version is sold or distributed that you run into the law. Fair use essentially only extends as far as your own personal usage.
This particular case was something of a grey area (in part because they weren't costing the movie-makers money - ie they weren't like people selling bootleg DVDs), but it's the act of copying and redistribution that got them. Legally, they're in the same boat - slightly better off for not profiting at the MPAAs expense like the aforementioned bootleg DVD seller, but slightly worse off for having made alterations to their copied versions without the original author's consent.
Think about it. If the law says that the MPAA can sue filesharers, who aren't altering the movies they distribute, and aren't charging money for their unauthorized copies, then what is protecting the defendants here who are both altering and charging money?
Now, if you disagree with the idea that the MPAA should be able to sue over stuff like this, then that's another matter altogether. I don't like their lawyers and lawsuits either. But my point here is about what the law is, not what it should be.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
If that is what you want, then by all means, buy a ClearPlay DVD Player and play your standard DVDs in it. It will automatically skip "the dirty bits" and there's no nefarious copyright infringment going on.
(Some) directors don't care about extra revenue. They made a movie with an artistic vision they wanted to convey to the audience, and these companies re-editing it, taking out parts they don't like, and then selling it. It's fine if someone skips a scene while watching it at home, but you can't then mass produce your version and sell it. It's like when Steven Spielberg refused to allow an edited version of Saving Private Ryan to be broadcast on TV. Taking out the violence in his film completly killed the what he was trying to convey to people.
The rights to the movie belong to the guy (company) that made it. If the airlines pay for a license to show an edited version then that is cool. The company in question here did NOT have permission to distributed edited versions of the movies.
No, I don't think it means that authors can ensure that only their authorized versions are sold. I think it means that third parties can only distribute "patches", but they can't include the original material with their patch, nor can they directly distribute the post-patch version. And I think that's been the case in the US for a long, long time.
Oh, yeah, http://www.clearplay.com/
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
"For each copy of the movie these companies sell, they buy one from Hollywood. Thus, if they sell 1984 copies of Gladiator with the naughty bits omitted, then they buy 1984 copies from the movie production company first. Thus, it can be said they are only reselling the copy of the book that they themselves purchased and from which they ripped out naughty pages."
It may seem that the two cases are the same, but they aren't. If the third party was able to remove content from the orginal disk somehow, but never made a copy of it, then it would be equivalent to tearing out pages of a book. Copyright is violated by making a copy even if the copyright holder doesn't lose money on the practice.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
Canada? Go back and RTFA again. The article may be on a Canadian website, but it's most definitely a ruling by a US judge, in a US court, in the US.
Also, the Family Movie Act just legalizes the use of software in the player to edit in real-time an unedited copy you already own. It does not legalize the creation of derivative works and the sale thereof.
> they are buying a license to Gladiator, which doesn't include the right to make derivative works.
F(*#$@ NO! They are *NOT* buying a license. They are buying a copyrighted work. You don't have to sign a EULA when you buy a DVD. You are, however, correct about derivative works (excepting works of parody) not being allowed under copyright.
"Build a man a fire warm him for a day, set a man on fire and warm him for the rest of his life."
Wal-mart only censors music, not movies. And it's not Wal-mart doing the censorship; the tracks on a CD you'd buy at Wal-mart are the ones you'd hear on the radio. They are made by the record companies. And I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that one of the big reasons Wal-mart doesn't carry 'explicit lyrics' versions of CDs is because of liability. Selling one of those to a minor will get you fired just as quickly as selling them beer.
As others have already stated, this has absolutely nothing to do with Walmart. This applies to services such as CleanFlix, which are very popular in Utah and Idaho. I am a Mormon, and I frequent Cleanflix often. Some movies are very enjoyable, but contain bits that I don't wish to see. If the mainstream want to see those bits, fine, go ahead; these services are not for them. If I don't want to see it, how does it affect you? Cleanflix allows me to rent movies that I would not otherwise rent, they are now turning away a potential customer. This does not hurt the copyright holder, they still receive the full purchase price for all the movies that Cleanflix uses. Their revenue is not altered in any way by this editing.
And:
A condensation, especially one made along definite editorial lines that differ from the original creator's, is certainly a derivative work, by 17 U.S.C. 101:
Back to OP: It certainly does. Newspapers pay for the license to create derivative works as well as redistribute. As part of that license, they are required to not edit it in such a way that will distort the "essential meaning" of the piece.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
[Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the following are not infringements of copyright:]
[...]
(11) the making imperceptible, by or at the direction of a member of a private household, of limited portions of audio or video content of a motion picture, during a performance in or transmitted to that household for private home viewing, from an authorized copy of the motion picture, or the creation or provision of a computer program or other technology that enables such making imperceptible and that is designed and marketed to be used, at the direction of a member of a private household, for such making imperceptible, if no fixed copy of the altered version of the motion picture is created by such computer program or other technology.; and
Don't approve of this action just because you think it only hurts a bunch of "right-wing Christian zealots". Remember fair use! There was a one-to-one copy sold with each of these DVDs---the original and the edited. The filmmakers did not lose one dime, and in fact made money with each copy sold.
Fair use would be you making a backup copy, puting the one you bought into storage, and using the backup. This is fair use. Heck, even taking a film that you own, making a copy and cutting out scenes you don't like... that is also fair use.
What's not fair use is making a copy, cutting scenes, and selling it as a new version without any consent. This is not a one to one copy as there are scenes cut. Money is beside the point... a copyright holder has every right to choose how a work is distributed. This would include not wanting some bozo cutting scenes on a work that took time to create. Any flaws, mistakes, anything which affects the overall presentation can damage the reputation of the respective studio and artists that created the work. It's like taking spray paint to a piece of fine art and going over the bits one finds offencive, this affects the quality of the piece and the viewer might assume the artist is sloppy dolt or doesn't have the technical skill or is too reserved to make a winkle.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
That's bullshit. You are not buying a copyrighted work. That would entail that you are buying all the rights associated with the copyright. You are buying a copy of a copyrighted work. You don't become the owner of any of the rights associiated with the copyright, and you really only have the right to use the work privately and sell your authorised copy.
Actually, this precedent has been up and running for 30 years in the US, and was set by a 1976 case brought by the Monty Python team, fed up with US networks butchering the early series. Cited in the Slate article on this case. See also VARA.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
see Good Clean Porn. The one I saw was quite entertaining.
-John Fenley
That's the point right there. Why all the bullshit about rights? Why not just say that you're buying a copy of a copyrighted work?
You are buying a copy.
Not the original, nor are you buying any rights.
Now this is the reason why the copyright rule breaks down: in theory, the company should be able to manipulate their own copy, as long as they don't make copies of it. If they want to backen out certain words or scenes, fine. As long as they're manipulating the original copy, no problem. In reality, what they are selling is technically a copy, because manipulation of the purchased media is unfeasable. Thus a copy is made (hard disk), edited and then a copy of the revised copy is made (the finished DVD). Now the end result is the same as if (for example) a VHS cassette was spliced, the spirit of the law is upheld. But since two copies were made, the letter of the law was broken even if the end result is still only one existing copy.
Like this?2 18216
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/09/1
http://www.clearplay.com/
The GPL is an example of a license that permits derivate works to be created. This same interpretation and outcome is what gives power to the part of the GPL requiring derivative works to also be licensed under the GPL. Any different outcome for this case would have had very wide implications indeed.
Certainly, my right to punch ends at my nose. But, how does getting an abortion physically harm you? How does it "punch you in the nose" so to speak?
To pro-lifers, abortion isn't about how it effects them -- they honestly believe that a child in a womb is a child non-the-less, and that this child has a right to live. They believe that having an abortion is taking a child's life.
Is it your business if one man kills another? Why are there laws against it? This is simply the view of the pro-life crowd. It's not that complicated.
'Partial birth abortion' is an emotive and non-specific term, not that it matters; if you would look into the subject you would discover that there are perfectly good reasons to 'do partial birth abortions'. And they're not all that common; Wikipedia (hah) reckons 1.4% of abortions occur at 21 weeks or later. Examples: a dead foetus, a massively fucked up foetus, a situation where the mother is likely to end up dead or, as mentioned, physically or mentally massively fucked up.
Now personally I wouldn't understand a woman who decided to do a partial birth abortion either, if I were stupid enough to believe that women just go for this sort of procedure for the laugh, but, well:
My sister and I are alive today because, when my mother's first pregnancy went disastrously wrong (eclampsia), leaving her comatose in hospital, my father discussed the options with a doctor and made a choice. If he'd made the other choice, the result would have been one surviving brain-damaged infant, no mother and no siblings. He was able to make that choice because 'partial birth abortions' were an option. But it was not a nice choice, nor was it a fun choice to make, nor was it a choice made by some random woman because she felt like killing a baby.
I have no idea why people seem to feel that talking bullshit about abortions is a useful occupation. It seems to me that most of the opinionated little sods out there basically need to butt out of other peoples' lives.
A good alternative for those who don't want their young children to see "bad" stuff is clearplay. We've had it for a while, here is how it works.
1. Buy a normal DVD with all the "naughty bits"
2. Get the filter from the clearplay website for that DVD
3. Transfer the filter via USB or CD to the clearplay DVD player
4. Watch your DVD - the filter tells the DVD player where to skip the naughty bits - no editing, just timecodes to be skipped.
I thought it'd be jumpy but it really isn't. Most of the time I can't even figure out what has been skipped. Plus you can set the level of each "naughty bit" - violence, profanity and sex - from low to high. Pretty neat stuff I'd say.
Those who like to RTFA might also like to RTFD (read the !%$#ing decision). You can find the judge's actual decision here:
7 /CleanFlicksDistCtOpinion.pdf
http://www.joegratz.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/0
Thanks to blogger Joe Gratz. I would be worried about overwhelming his server, but I don't think many Slashdotters are actually willing to do that much work.