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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.'''
Parents don't use DVR's to produce commercially sold edited copies of content published by another party.
What I don't understand is why Wal-Mart censors things anyway. If people don't like the content, why don't they just, you know, not buy it?
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
I think the difference there is that you're not distributing your edited copy to the public.
Nothing disgusts me more then watching or reading something I know has been censored. People should be free to consume whatever media they want to, as long as it isn't hurting anybody no one should have the right to tell me what I can and can't see. Furthermore if I created a work of art I would find it supremely offensive to have some clensing squad go over it and take out the stuff that might offend people, chances are if it offends someone it was put there for that reason. This is with the possible exception of old works that have become offensive, but in that case they should be left as they are and taken in the context that they were created.
Something tells me that the director's "artistic vision" for example didn't include Bruce Willis saying ""Yippee-ki-yay Mister Falcon." in Die Hard, or "This is what happens whey you find a stranger in the Alps!" in the Big Lebowski: how is that different from what these companies were/are doing? Or is it simply a case of "censoring is ok, as long as the studio does it? The "These films carry our name and reflect our reputations. So we have great passion about protecting our work ... against unauthorized editing," line sounds a bit hypocritical, especially if the companies in question did put some sort of disclaimer (cleaned by cleanflix, whatever) at the movie beginning.
-- the cake is a lie
Reselling altered copyrighted material is an interesting proposition legally. On the other hand, if I buy a DVD or video, I should have to right to view it however I want, and I think I should also have to right to pay someone else to edit it to my liking if I want; it's my DVD after all. Despite everything (no matter which side you take), copyright holders do not have a right to force me to view it the way they want me to. The hard part is that in order to change the DVD, I have to copy it first, which is now a felony. And I think that's the part where these companies have gotten tripped up.
Taking this ruling farther, is it illegal if I publish an MPlayer EDL list for editing out naughty bits of a DVD? I believe Hollywood would want to make it so. On the other hand, when the DVD format was created, it was intended all along that the DVD player could apply edit codes to the video to alter the rating, supply alternate soundtracks, etc. Very little of this has ever been used in the production of DVDs, as Hollywood is the one making them in the first place.
The smart thing to do is for the EFF and other orgs to make a temp alliance with the 'pro-family' groups to have copyright laws rewritten.
This is a chance to get more people involved in rolling back the increased rights granted to copyright holders these past few years.
Result in a nutshell: If I own a DVD, I cannot pay someone to make a copy of that movie for me sans parts I might find offensive. It's not censorship, because *I'm the one asking him to do it for me*. But in yet another defeat for personal freedom (and another win for the moneyed interests), the courts have found that this is a violation of copyright law.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
At,
Least in the USA we are "relatively" free to innovate.
What somebody needs to do is to devise a DVD player that can read a file delineating where the objectionable parts are on the particular DVD. Once the bad parts are known to the player the player simply skips them.
People who want to view the unedited version are happy and those that don't desire to see whatever content can be happy as well.
The original content on the original DVD is not altered in any manner. Copyright is protected.
Religious groups could then produce the "files" to correspond to their own needs and distribute these files via the Internet. The files are uploaded to the special DVD player...
It's basically the same as having Adblock installed in Firefox. You simply delineate what you don't want to see and Firefox delivers what you do want to see. No one is sueing Firefox for eliminating advertisements.
Should be the same for objectionable DVD content.
Caution: Contents under pressure
To be clear, this is NOT a ruling against censorship in any way. This is a ruling that one cannot use the motives of private censorship to in any way go against copyright laws. They'll have to sell their 'services' to the (mostly) corporate owners of the rights to works, rather than directly to customers or retailers.
A fairly appropriate ruling, in the context. But this does mean that when a more automatic method of censorship comes around, then new forms of censorship shouldn't face these same legal barriers. They just have to be blind to which naughty bits and sounds they're covering up, fresh each time, so they're not producing a 'derrivative work' in a saleable form.
Ryan Fenton
They just, you know, don't buy it. Thats exactly why Wal-mart and every other 'mart' purchases censored versions. Because they care about money and not much else.
Its a remarkable stupid situation where one company can't do something that other companies have done every day.
"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."
This is not a comparative description. 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.
The only difference between my doing this and them doing this is that they are conducting the same business on a larger scale.
What is more important to Hollywood is what our society deems appropriate. If these companies become more popular, then it could be argued in court that this success means the naughty parts of these movies violate public decency and can therefore face government stricture. These standards have eroded over my lifetime, but it need not be so.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
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.
So if we are to argue that, if you bought something you have the legal right to do whatever you want to it (Fast Forward through commercials, play on a Linux box, rip to a hard drive), then you cannot allow Hollywood to start acquiring new rights for their so-called "artistic vision". Otherwise, you will find yourself unable to fast forward through scenes (or commercials) because that would violate the "artistic vision" of Hollywood.
Remember folks---it is all about control. Hollywood wants all the control. We cannot surrender even the smallest bit of it, because as soon as we do it establishes legal precedence.
And as for their pure "artistic vision", they regularly violate it when they make full-screen movies, TV versions, and rereleases of the same movie every 10 years.
It's because the other companies (such as the wal) have enough purchasing power to make the record company release a "clean" version. If the video stores in question were actually a 300 billion dollar chain, they could have just asked the studios nicely for a "clean" version and gotten it.
That's hilarious coming from a Mormon. If I want to buy alcohol on Sunday, how does that affect you? If I want to marry a person of the same sex, how does that affect you? If my girlfriend needs/wants an abortion, how does that affect you? If I want to have sex before marriage, how does that affect you?
Christians are constantly pushing their views onto others and pressuring law makers to criminalize behavior they disagree with, even when it has nothing to do with them. So it seems a bit ironic that you would use "If I don't want to see it, how does it affect you?' in your defense of this.
This was a clear case of a commercial company profiting from derivative works of copyrighted material. That's exactly the thing copyright law was created to prevent.
Maybe not
It would be illegal even if you were to buy a book for each copy you sold. It may seem silly to many, but that's how copyright works. You would be creating and distributing a derivitive work, and you need the copyright holder's permission to do that, no matter what. Just because you bought their stuff doesn't give you that right.
In the end, it's important that it remains that way for OSS, becuase that's what gives the GPL legal force. If you were allowed to sell s distributed work without permission, provided you legally obtained and destroyed a copy for each work you distributed, GPL software would lack any enforcement ability. People could simply get your software for free legally, and then distribute modified versions. They might have to go through the cermonial process of downloading a copy for each one they sold and deleting it, but it would all be legal.
However, they don't have that right. Even though you give your work away for free, they still ahve to respect your copyright. Via the GPL you give them the right to distribute derivitve works, but only if they agree to some conditions (like opening their code). That they got the copy legally or paid you isn't relivant, copyright mandidates they can't distribute derivitives without permission, and your price on that permission is spelled out in the GPL.
Moral issues aside, willfully engaging in behavior contrary to basic biological drives (reproduction) indicates something seriously wrong with an individual.
So you're obviously opposed to birth control, computers (except strictly as a work tool), all forms of entertainment, and anything people do that doesn't directly support having a child or raising a child. Wait, why're you on Slashdot anyway? I highly doubt (all jokes aside, even) that'll help you reproduce.
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
Finally, the same-sex marriage. Moral issues aside, willfully engaging in behavior contrary to basic biological drives (reproduction) indicates something seriously wrong with an individual.
Finally, fast-food restaurants. Moral issues aside, willfully engaging in behaviour contrary to basic biological drives (nutrition) indicates something seriously wrong with an individual.
Finally, the tobacco industry. Moral issues aside, willfully engaging in behaviour contrary to basic biological drives (breathing) indicates something seriously wrong with an individual.
Finally, couch-patatoing . Moral issues aside, willfully engaging in behaviour contrary to basic biological drives (exercising) indicates something seriously wrong with an individual.
My point is that people do things that someone could argue "contrary to basic biological drives" all the time. Just for fun, for pleasure, or just because they want to. And you don't have the right to tell other people who they should marry to or what they should do with their lives.
And as a side note, homosexual behaviour in animals has been observed many times in the wild. I'm sure that you know and that you're conveniently ignoring the fact that it is a perfectly normal behaviour, biologically and psychologically speaking, regardless of what current-day society might think.
My site
I guess "free speech" ranks higher on the /. concerns than copyright issues.
The step from "edited for cleanness" to "edited for political acceptance" isn't that big. And neither is the step from "voluntary" to "mandatory" as it's been proven far too many times.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't like people who "scrub" movies, but I still think this ruling is bad. For millennia, art has progressed and evolved by taking some prior artist's work and modifying it, often in ways that the original artist didn't agree with. Except for possibly receiving financial compensation for a limited time for each copy created, artists should not have the power to control what happens to their creations after they have released them to the public.
And yet another view, this time from a non christian Libertarian...
Tell that to all the people whos lives have been ruined by alcohol. Both drinkers and non drinkers.
Prohibition does not work. The keys to combating drug and alcohol abuse are education and treatment.
On the subject of gay marriage.
Marriage is a social and religious construct. The government has no buisiness regulating or being involved in the religious definition of marriage. Government has other duties to focus on. The government can allow a civil union (say between two human beings) which would allow joint ownership of property, insurance, child custody, etc. That is where the government's responsibility for marriage ends. All marriages would be a simple civil union in the eyes of the government. What you choose to call it is your business. You want to call it a marriage, that's your perogative.
On religion in government, particularly in Ireland.
Ireland is a great example of what happens when you mix religion with government. Even to this day, Ireland is divided on religious lines and it is quite rediculous that is has gotten to this point. The founding fathers of the US had it right. Church and State must be separate. What we really need is government by reason. Right now we have a mostly reactionary government. They just react to what is happening, usually violently or impulsively instead of working out the reasonable course of action. It is a good sign people are beginning to push back, and some even to realize that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are capable of reasonable leadership anymore. We need leaders who will work in a reasonable and logical way to meet the needs of the people, and a total revisiting of all US law. Anything that is outdated, unreasonable or obviously bought as political favor needs to be chucked or rewritten in a reasonable way. The court system needs to be cleaned up as well. We need to make it possible for the average joe to understand the laws and defend himself if necessary. Court shouldn't be some huge mystery that you have to pay someone $300 an hour or more to deal with for you.
And that is just for starters... this country needs help, and only putting people who can think and reason logically in power will save us at this point.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Well put, but misplaced. I absolutely care about getting the full version of the film on my DVD, and I care about the producers, directors, etc, getting propper credit for their work.
However, my understanding is that these edited films were well labled as modified and that patrons of these companies had a very good understanding that they weren't getting the theatrical release. Assuming that's the case, then I have a very hard time understanding what the problem is. This ruling is exactly the equivilant of me buying a book, then ripping out some pages I dislike, then reselling the book, clearly labled as missing pages, to a third party. Making that illegal is silly.
Oh, and by the way, what does this say about DJ remixes? People enjoy modified works. As long as the modification is happening on a per-unit basis and eveyone gets properly credited and paid, why are we trying to restrict this.
TW
Funny, I thought it was because they saw the VOLUNTARY editing of your own PERSONAL copy of a movie to be a "fair use" of the purchased content that the content creators wanted to restrict in order to generally reign in fair use.
Geez, am I the only one who sees this? The services I read about allowed you to BUY AN ORIGINAL COPY of the movie, and then because you also opted to PAY for their services they would MAKE you an edited copy while sometimes preserving and returning the untouched original. The decision that it's not OK for a service to make a copy to suit a customer's needs in that case is another step towards "licensing" content instead of OWNING it.
(To prevent comments from going off on tangents, I offer this disclaimer: I would not watch or buy an edited movie, I like to watch deleted scenes and all that kind of supplementary material; I support a customer's right to do whatever they want with their copy short of distributing or misrepresenting it. Main source for information the "sanitizing" process: Washington Post article)
[command INSERTWITTYQUIP failed: insufficient wit]
To back you up: another one of those 'Mormons'.
I think that as a group the LDS ('Mormons') are incredibly aware of the effect of reactionary laws designed to garner political power: witness the Extermination Order signed by Governor Boggs of Missouri in the 1800's. It essentially made it legal to kill Mormons without any type of reason other than their religion. Wholly unconstitutional, and even if you are a religion-bashing atheist, you should recognize that this is a very dangerous thing to do.
Now to clear up a few points: Marriage is, as stated, a socio-religious construct and should be treated as such. The only value to having government recognize it is if there is a benefit to society. Some people (including many in the church I attend) will argue that children raised in a two-parent heterosexual home are more psychologically healthy than those who are not. Although there have been 'scientific' studies of this topic, I have yet to see one that really had a handle on the topic because the heart of the matter lies not in determining the effects of environment on one particular child, but in the following problems:
1) separating environment from genetics (this may be impossible, truth be told);
2) defining psychological health in a non-binary method (harder than it sounds--I don't think anyone has yet done this beyond the GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning), which has serious limitations and was developed for use with mentally ill patients, not to rank order normal humans);
3) removing researcher bias (all researchers have a bias--if you meet someone researching a socially or politcally charged issue that claims otherwise, they are likely lying; learn the bias of every researcher before you take their research at any value);
4) controlling all of the other relevant variables and still have a sample size worth mentioning (it is easy in some studies to examine more variables than you have participants, especially if you have a really tough question like this one where getting participants can be tricky--too small of a sample and you are essentially defining each participant as a predictor of their own behavior, which is not a good situation).
In the end the only solution I can see for the question of gay marriage is to remove government from the question of marriage. Ultimately it comes down to a question of religion: if you can find a religion that advocates gay marriage then you are free to get married under the auspices of that church. Otherwise, form a civil union and the government should (but doesn't yet) recognize that as legally binding. The same should apply to heterosexual marriages: these are non-binding in the legal sense, if you want to have the state recognize your legal status, you will need a civil union as well. Of course this requires changing the law in a wholly undramatic and logical manner, so it is unlikely to happen anytime soon. More likely is that gay marriage will be legalized, and those of us who are religious will have to accept something that we find morally offensive, even though there exists a perfectly logical and sane alternative that actually provides more equality to those who are clamoring for gay marriage in the first place.
Prohibition serves us in no way, and likewise the war on drugs in largely ineffective. Are there some who would use crack and herione if _only_ they were legal? Sure, but they are a minority, and I suspect that many companies would continue to use drug testing as a part of the employment agreement, thus making it impractical for a good number of people (think airline pilots: show up high and you're fired, no questions--show evidence of using recreational pharmaceuticals, and you're fired).
Religion in government will never work. The only time it could work is if it were so obvious that the religion represented the truth of the universe that no one could logically or reasonably deny that it were true. This has never happened, although some Christians predict that this will be the exact situation whe
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
"...why should society provide such advantages to behavior which it finds to be detrimental to it?"
Society hasn't found homosexual behavior to be "detrimental to it", it's nothing more than prejudice. Given that marriage is an artificial construct created by society, it should be obvious to you that homosexuals desire the same artificially constructed benefits of marrriage that others do and that were created by society for that very reason. Obvously, "all men created equal" means something different to you.
If marriage is an artificial construct of society, why does sex before marriage seem stupid to you? Did we need to create an artificial relationship before you could reproduce?
Homosexual sex for a gay person is a basic biological drive. That's why there ARE gay people. It's not a choice.
Because most movies that are otherwise worth watching have a fairly low ratio of "naughty bits" to actual content. If you have a two-hour movie, from which you excise maybe five minutes, then you still have a movie worth watching. A lot of the time, these things are simply gratuitous --- they contribute nothing to the plot.
Granted, there are also quite a few movies that have very little aside from naughty bits, but not all of them. I can think of many movies I'd like better if the gratuitous spurting blood scene or sex scene weren't there.
These guys that are editing movies aren't doing anything to deprive anyone else of the right to see the unedited version, nor are they doing anything to deprive the studios of profit. I can't see where the law should have any say whatsoever here.