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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.'''
I didn't think there was any way that this would work out, but it did. I remember the first time I bought a cd from wal-mart, only to return it later because it was missing a couple of tracks.
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
What I'm interested to know is how this affects parents who use their DVR's to achieve the same purpose to sanitize movies for their children. Hollywood has expressed anger over THAT practice, too, which seems to me wholly unfair.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
This reminds me of the classic question of what happens to all the donut holes...
Parents don't use DVR's to produce commercially sold edited copies of content published by another party.
To allow the uber-religious folk to watch movies with the bad parts cut out. Of course, this made Pulp Fiction about 30 seconds long, but oh well.
Regardless, soon we'll hear from (R)s (and some D's like Clinton and Lieberman) about activist judges and restoring something of something.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Wow. Much as I approve of this slap to the boobies-are-icky types, this is really another example of the ways copyright is going crazy. Why SHOULD a director have this so-called right to dictate that others view the precise film he made? I buy a book or film and read / watch what I choose. If I want to be able to automatically skip certain types of content, and someone is willing to sell me a means to do so, why is it anyone else's business? I mean, am I at least allowed to manually fast-forward through the naughty bits, or would that offend the MPAA's sensitivities as well? Why shouldn't someone auto fastforward for me if I'm willing?
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.
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.
Something tells me the MPAA has an ideal court case for extending their powers, here. I mean, 99% of the population would glance at this case and declare: "Cutting the naughty bits out of movies is bad!" or "Hur hur hur, take dat you stupid rednecks!"
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I did RTFA, but it didn't mention how the practice violated copyright law. I understand the concerns of the people producing the original works. However:
1) The works weren't sold in stores, so the only people who had them were people who intentionally wanted them. It's not like selling a ripoff or counterfeit.
2) Doesn't this count as fair use. Does this mean that I can't take a song from a CD I bought and remove sections of it? Or it it because the companies were making a profit off of the derviation that it violated the law?
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
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
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
Now wouldn't it be cool if you could apply this decision to Lucas for having Greedo shoot first - now that's offensive!
And from the DGA President:
These are supposed to show the reason behind the decision. Following the logic of the first, censorship of any sort of art would be copyright infringement. The second quote isn't even relevant. The company clearly states that the DVDs are edited; that's the whole point of someone trading an unedited one for their version!
If the company is doing something else that's infringing, I could understand the suit, but that's not what the suers are talking about.
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.
How about because you can't tell the difference between the consumer and a middleman. What you do is one thing. What a middleman does is something else. Got any other questions you want me to Google?
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
The Court also handed down several companion rulings:
First, that closing one's eyes or looking away during commercials, previews, gratuitous violence, sex, or nudity is an abridgement of copyright as it results in a derivative work without the consent of the copyright holders.
Secondly, that because going to the bathroom during the boring parts (and the court in no way implies that there are boring parts in Hollywood movies) also results in the creation of a derivative work, it is also forbidden by law.
Thirdly, that because some persons have been known to talk over or about the soundtrack, dialog, or events of movies, thus creating an unauthorized derivative combination of commentary and the original cinematic release in violation of copyright, movies may only be watched by persons without mouths.
It's not OK to remove violence or obscenities from home movies, but airlines are free to remove anything they find commercially offensive from in-flight movies.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
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
I've got to say I'm pretty surprised by the number of voices saying here that there is a problem with this decision. This sounds like a perfectly sound interpretation of the law to me. The bowdlerizing companies are taking a copyrighted work, altering it in small ways, and then selling or renting the new work in a commercial enterprise. Even if the studios are paid, that does not mean that the buyer has a right to change and re-distribute the work, if the original owner does not permit that. Copyright gives the owner substantial control over his or her works. In the same way, the GPL allows me to copy and change source code, but does not allow me to do so without restriction, because the owner of the copyrights have assigned a license to that effect.
Any now for your viewing pleasure. Some naughty bits.
B*m
T*ts
Kn*ckers
Semprini
(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.
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.
I still don't see where the studio is losing out. They're getting the full price for each editted version sold. Do you think that a family has the right to take a new DVD they paid full price for to a company to have them edit it so it's safe for their children is in the wrong? They are not advertising it and reselling it as their own version.
Do you think it should be legal for one movie studio to copy a currently-in-theatres blockbuster that cost some other studio $100M to produce and market, and then to sell a trivially edited version to theatres at a fraction of the normal price?
If the studio is getting the full fees per ticket that they'd get for an uneditted, and as long as the theater playing it is not claiming to be the original producer of the film, then yes. If anything, allowing this would increase their sales a bit because people who would otherwise bypass a film would be more inclined to see it. If it came at the cost of the studio losing money, such as a small theater somewhere playing it without paying the film company for playing it, then the film company would be losing money, and that is when it would be wrong.
It's a girl!
This doesn't effect places like Walmart.
The records they carry are sanitized by the copyright holders... the labels. This suit refers to those who edit content without holding a copyright.
For the most part, this suit effects religious nuts who have been white washing rentals.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I think I can see where the harm is. Think of Ayn Rand's novels, The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. If those were edited for content by many of today's far-Left nitwits, they would not convey the same message. The problem is that they would (presumably) be sold as the same novels written by the same author, something I am sure she would disapprove of if she were still alive today.
A little editing can be a very dangerous thing. How hard would it be to edit a few sections out of Michael Moore's "Roger & Me" to make the unionized workers in Flint look like stupid, incompetent crybabies? That film is a wonderful piece of propaganda that would be horribly distorted if it was edited in a malicious manner.
Almost any non-trivial creative work contains/conveys some sort of message(s) that can easily be lost or damaged by clever (or simply bad) editing. I know I do not want a lot of things I write edited down and posted out of context as being written by me, even though that does happen all too often to people a lot more famous than I will ever be.
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
This actually might be good news over the next few years. A large and key bloc of Republican voters (the Christian right) is going to be very, very annoyed about this ruling. If they start supporting copyright reform in a big way because of this, substantial changes might be possible for once.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
I was curious to see if TFA mentioned ClearPlay, a company we heard about on /. a while ago that markets custom DVD players that read not only the DVD but also a database that categorizes the content on popular movies, allowing you to program the player to skip scenes of sex or violence or whatever bothers you. The company seems to still be in business, but apparently they're not popular enough to keep these custom DVDs out of the market. The effect is the same, but without the copyright concerns.
/. comments at the time being fairly negative, but to me it seemed like a pretty good idea. I don't really like censorship in any form, but it's hard to argue with something as voluntary as buying a whole separate DVD player to keep your kids from seeing the naughty bits, if that's what gets your goat.
I seem to recall the
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
That isn't what is going on here. Essentially, people are buying a DVD at FULL PRICE (from the company) and then paying this company to remove certain parts. The consumer received 2 copies--the original and the edited version.
It would be more to the effect of someone selling you a DVD and saying skip 00:11 to 00-15 and 1:10 to 1:15.
The service they ruled to be illegal was one that made modifications to a copyrighted work for those who owned a copy of it.
This ruling limits the ways in which a person can enjoy content they've legitimately purchased. Now, I know that some people are against this because it censors the movies, but I think this is bad because it gives the copyright holders too much power. Sure, this time it's the naughty bits and maybe they're just prudes not to watch it, but the same logic could, in theory, be extended to say that you can't "censor" the advertisements from your TV recordings.
You may well think that they're wrong for wanting to do that to the work, but I say that it's their right to appreciate it in any damn way they please, and if the author doesn't like that, too bad--as far as I'm concerned, they can take their "art" and shove it up their ass (knowing Holleywood, that's where they pulled it from in the first place).
...I happen to be a theatre major as well as a Computer Science Major (yes, and odd combination, I know)...but speaking as an artist, I would not want someone else to take something I've written and re-edit it, removing things they didn't like.
Believe it or not, every detail of every scene in the movie is very intentional. If someone were to delete anything, espically an entire scene, that could destroy the entire central image I was going for.
For this reason, I support the decision.
That said, I'm not a huge fan of "naughty bits" myself, particularly in front of children. As an artist, however, I would rather the parents say "we're not going to watch this movie" and not buy it than for them to re-edit it themselves.
Removal of a whole song on a CD is different... i would view that as "we're not going to listen to this song", rather than "We're going to change this persons art."
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.
If memory serves, when networks broadcast movies on television, they take out the naughty bits. Since Hollywood is anxious to preserve the artistic integrity of its product, they'll no doubt take this court ruling to the television networks and forbid them from censoring said naughty bits. Right?
I still don't see where the studio is losing out.
Creative control.
If the studio is getting the full fees per ticket that they'd get for an uneditted, and as long as the theater playing it is not claiming to be the original producer of the film, then yes.
Well it isn't. You have to wait for copyright to expire before you do that. It's their right to edit a movie or not.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
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.
I understand where the movie companies are coming from in terms of copyright... they don't want people taking a DVD, adding additional clips/features/menus/etc, and selling that for a profit. Then again, I don't really understand why they have an issue with that. They're getting just as much money from each DVD sale, so it's not like they're losing any business. In fact, they're probably gaining business from those people who wouldn't normally buy a certain movie due to violent/sexual/etc content, but will if they get an edited version of the movie.
;)
As for the directors and producers that claim their artistic vision was impeded upon, they sure don't have an issue with those movies being modified in the exact same way for broadcast on network tv. All they care about is the large amount of money the networks give them.
So, what this really comes down to is the movie studios wanting complete control over their works, which I'm surprised to see much of the Slashdot crowd backing up. Seems it's better to hate "the red states" than to hate the MPAA.
Now that that those are taken care of, where do Microsoft, the Kansas Board of Education, America, Republicans, sports, and current music stars fit in?
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
>>Do you think it should be legal for one movie studio to copy a currently-in-theatres blockbuster that cost some other studio $100M to produce and market, and then to sell a trivially edited version to theatres at a fraction of the normal price?
Yes, if the second studio buys one full price of admission from the original studio's release for each customer who views the edited version. Again, the original studio gets all of the money they would have gotten anyways.
I can see how this violates the law, but I fail completely to see who is harmed.
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.
This is the reason why you cannot skip the advertisements on some DVDs now. If you've already purchased the movie, you shouldn't have to watch advertisements about it. Movie companies should take a page from computer software: "Purchase the full version to remove this ad." If you've bought something, you own it. If I want to use my copy of Top Gun to take baked potatos out of the oven, that's my prerogative.
I think you're begging the question:
You assume the distribution of the edited films was a violation of copyright. This may seem obvious to you, but the law is rarely black and white. This was surely one of the questions of the case. The judge's explanation of his decision in terms of "irreparable injury to . . . creative artistic expression" indicates a specific reason why he was inclined to find that way.
I am no lawyer, but this looks to me like an expansion of copyright. "Reading in" protections like this (a practice disparagingly called judicial activism when folks don't like the results) has tremendously expanded the scope of copyright over the years. From a law originally based on the economic motivation of promoting the production of creative works, it has been transformed into a right of exclusive control over expression and culture.
Personally, I think Hollywood's stance is transparently hypocritical. It's absurd to argue that films produced by many people at great cost are somehow a pure form of creative expression (were such a thing even possible). At every level they are designed as profit-making vehicles. Hollywood is, in effect, claiming that they have the right to allow market forces to influence their works, but no-one else does.
James Boyle provides an explanation in Shamans, Software and Spleens: he argues that rulings like this can be understood in terms of the myth of the original author who creates great works ex nihilo. Judge Matsch's comments certainly fit the theory. It's too bad. Myths, even when there's some truth in them, shouldn't make law.
I think I'm about to overdose on the stench of hypocrisy emanating from the DGA. These clowns have no problem with distributors and television networks hacking their masterpieces into kibble, to fit in more commercials and eliminate the naughty bits, but if someone in Utah does it, it's an attack on their so-called "artistic integrity"? To mutilate an old joke, we know they are whores, they are just haggling over the price.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.
Because without this, the GPL would have no teeth. Here's why:
What the censors were arguing is that if you obtain a legal copy of something, you've got the right to make and distribute a derivitve work from it. They said it was legal, so long as for every derivitive version, you obtained a legal orignal and destroyed it.
Ok so perhaps you think that's fair but now let's take the fantasy world where that's the case. I'm form EvilCorp and I want to use Linux for my product but I don't want to hand out my modifications. No problem, what I do is for every product I make, I download the source and then destroy it. Or maybe, just to make sure that there's money involved I buy a legal copy form one of those places that sells CDs cheap. I'm 100% legit at this point. The law says I can distribute a derivitive for every orignal I legally obtain and destroy, and I'm doing just that. The GPL loses all it's teeth.
What makes the GPL work is precisley what this ruling found: Buying a copy of something doesn't give you the right to make and distribute a derivitive work. Just because you chose to give someone your source code, doesn't mean they can jsut go make their own versions of your software. Copyright still applys. They need your permission to do that. The GPL then gives that permission, but in exchange for agreement to limits on what they must do. Doesn't matter how many copies of your product they buy/downlaod, they agree to the GPL or they don't get to distribute.
So this ruling is not only legally correct with the intent of copyright, but is also very important to the GPL.
[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.
...this is just plain stupid. A decision such as this should be applicable to all copyright work so try the mental exercise of applying it to a book as it is the oldest form of copyrighted media. You buy a book and a pen. You scribble out a few words and perhaps write in a couple of your own sentences. You sell the book on. Have you breached copyright? Perhaps, if you claimed that the whole work was produced by you but I didn't hear anyone saying they wrote the book / film whatever. Yeah they defaced the work and sold it on but that's a totally different matter and not something for the courts to be involved in.
Going back to the book example. What if your kid scribbled on the pages? What if your dog ate part of the book (that happened to me once while at school)? As far as I am concerned the copyright holder gets to sell the work to you once. What you do with it after that is you own concern.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
While it won't affect me, the person wanting to watch a movie, it does affect the person who made it. They had some idea on their mind, a story, a plot that the movie should tell. When you now remove scenes from the movie, you can alter the story quite a bit. Now, this does not apply to many movies, where the gore scenes are little more than eye catchers that don't really tell anything about the story itself, but sometimes it can be very important.
Let's try a drastic example. And yes, I'm gonna stereotype to the extreme.
Let's take a movie, set in the southeast of America in the beginning 20th century. A black human rights activist does not "get" the messages some white power dickheads give him, so they go to his house while he's not there and slaughters his family. Cruelly. Be as graphic as you can imagine, up to the point where babies get eaten. In short: No questions remaining as to who's the bad guy.
Now, he comes home, finds his family murdered in the most cruel way and decides to go on a revenge spree. He knows who they are, and he kills them one by one in the most creative way possible. Police is puzzling for a long while what's going on, can't find out for a long, long time who might be doing it 'til they catch on, now of course they're all-white too and rather anti-black, and finally they find out who it is and they hunt him as he kills the last few ones, killing him just after he finished his revenge run.
The difference, when you cut out the gory scenes about his family, is that he has no reason for the killing spree. So the story alters dramatically.
Story with gore scenes: A black man, trying to fight for his right, takes revenge on the white power assholes that ripped his family apart, hunted by the white power police and still manages to get his revenge.
Story without gore scenes: A black human rights activist going insane and killing white people, while the police tries its best to bring him to justice.
Altering content has the power to change the movie completely. You can tell a completely different story when you cut away this, switch those scenes and so on. And this is where the danger lies in that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The "reform" they'd most likely call for is to ban "naughty" movies or at the very least "naughty" parts in normal movies. Instead of fighting the copyright issue, they'd tackle the subject much more directly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What would remain? A plumber going to the house of a young lady... next scene he goes home. A traffic cop pulling a young lady over... next scene she drives on.
I can already see the ad for it: 100 of the best porn movies on one DVD!
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.
Let's hope at the scrubbing companies at least had a patent on this idea. That way they can make their money back ten fold when the movie industry offers the same service 6 months from now.
My only concern is that if edited versions are not available, and the only version available is the purely unedited version, might that cause DVD producers to be more conservative with what they put in, in the first place? (It's a vague parallel to the rebate story posted earlier on SlashDot; if there isn't breakage [unfiled rebates], then the overall amount of rebates will likely drop. Sometimes by purifying and simplifying the process, you can cause unintended effects.)
In general, I applaud the ruling, but worry it might reduce the quality of the original distributions.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I think the appropriate metaphor would be that it punches the baby in the nose. How you get your fist up there without losing momentuum due to friction is an exercise for the reader.
The player's owners just download the scripts and can safely watch any movie.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Cleanflix, at one point, offered a "sanitized" version of Enemy at the Gates. (I can't confirm if they still do, as their site is slashdotted.)
So, by them, it's okay for kids to see guys getting mown down crossing a river, blown to pieces by artillery shells, and executed by Red Army commissars -- but God forbid they should be exposed to a couple minutes of filthy sniper sex.
What a fucking backwards country.
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.
...that inserts nude scenes that weren't previously in the movie?
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.
In related news, MPAA president Jack Valenti was quoted as saying 'Every time a parent fast-forwards past sex and violence, they are committing a crime.'
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Sex before marriage seems stupid to me [...] willfully engaging in behavior contrary to basic biological drives (reproduction) indicates something seriously wrong with an individual.
Marriage is contrary to the basic biological drive of fucking every attractive members of the opposite sex you can find.
You can't take the sky from me...
No, no, no. You can't actually edit his post, just like Cleanfix can't edit the original. What Cleanfix can do is what you actually did. You provided an edited copy, that everyone can clearly see is not the original, without altering the original. Some people may prefer your version, but they will never be confused as to who wrote what.
It comes down to fair use. It saddens me that anyone would be such a prissy little prude as to want such a thing, but I support the rights of prissy little prudes to be prissy little prudes, just as I support the rights of other 'artists' to take a copy of the Bible and alter it by smearing it with shit. You buy it, you can do whatever the fuck you want with it.
I may be a socialist, but I'm no communist and I'd hope that in this country private property still means exactly that. In the end, this means commercial skipping is just as illegal.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yes, they did get it: the pizza with the cleaner pizza was part of a scene and were smiling at each other and cheese.
My brain is overly lubricated
Uhh... actually, it *is* illegal to modify a DVD for personal viewing, and was so long before this judge's ruling. This act would be referred to as creating a "derivative work", and is explicitely listed as one of the exlusive rights granted to the copyright holder (unless they grant that right via a licensing agreement) in section 106 of the United Stated Copyright Code. The difference, of course, is that this company was making a profit from creating derivative works (under the guise of a service), while an individual in their home is not, and thus is of little concern to copyright holders.
My view is that a baby has no distinction from an animal until it learns to talk at about a year of age. Therefore, the parents should legally be allowed to "put the baby to sleep" until this point, provided that it is done humanely. Discuss.
That, and the fact that you aren't bypassing any security features in order to alter the content.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Very helpful link.
From reading the material on derivative works, it looks like the Ninth Circuit would consider adding stickers to an existing photograph to be an inappropriate creation of a derivative work, whereas the Seventh Circuit might decide the exact opposite.
If limited to splicing of purchased VHS tapes, the two courts might each decide the case differently, making even VHS splicing a murky legal choice, at best.
I would really like to see the full text of the Judge's ruling in this case, as that is the only way to know on what grounds he made the decision. From the little bit we get from the article, he seems more likely to mimic the Ninth Circuit ruling.
Okay, how about this: if you want absolute moral rights to your work, you must be raised in a box and never have contact with outside culture. Then and only then will your works be yours. If by work, we mean "drooling and shitting yourself." Everything else is stolen. Ain't nothin' new under the sun. Everything artistic is a rip off of something else. That's why the US has the copyright system we do, to ensure that there are enough works in the public domain that artists can go on creating without infringing.
Let's take a little tumble down the slippery slope you have set up. Absolute "natural" rights (or the incredibly shortsighted tack our congress is taking by indefinite extension of copyright) leads to the state where every possible idea is owned, and no one can ever create without paying well-nigh incalculable royalties to bazillions of artists and their decadent heirs. Making art is like making a baby. You make it, you point it in the right direction, and you let go.
Now you and I probably wouldn't call television executives "artists." Yet they are creating artistic works, programs interspersed with commercials. According to them, those programs are meant to be viewed with commercials. You can see it in the pace and timing of the shows. Are we then destroying the artistic integrity of those shows by using DVRs and skipping the commercials? Skipping commercials is unauthorized editing. How is skipping commercials different than skipping violence or sex?
Let's even do away with commercial skipping as we are dealing with three different sets of "artists" e.g. the ones who made the show, the ones who made the commercial, and the ones who "artfully" combined the two into half hour and hour long segments. Let's just look at the pause button. I like it. Sometimes I have to go to the bathroom, sometimes I like to talk with my wife about the show (well, more often listen to what she says about the show...) But the artist never intended the show to be paused. Perhaps pausing the show ruins the dramatic tension they were trying to build. Should artists have the right to prohibit my use of the pause button? If not, why should they be able to prohibit the use of the fast forward button, which aside from the unauthorized copying is what we are really talking about.
I could go on one of my long winded "there are no such things as natural rights" rants, but I will spare you. Let's pull an Internet favorite and put it in terms of that damn "first they came for the blah blah" speach. First they came for the people who wanted to skip violence and sex, and I did not speak out because I damn well like violence and sex. Then they came for the people who wanted to skip commercials and I was pretty well hoist by my own petard, now wasn't I?
In short, I cannot reconcile thwe belief that commercial skipping is okay with the belief that editing out violence or sex for personal viewing is not okay. Either they are both okay or neither is.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I knew it was altered because I'd seen the movie before. The viewers who had not seen it before were warned that the movie was "adapted for television", but were not given information about the nature of the changes, were likely, well, perhaps you will find the word "misled" too strong, I don't, but let's not quibble on that point. The fact is that, as evidenced by many, many discussions after the first showing of Brazil on TV locally, it was clear that many viewers were in fact left confused.
I think the case of the parent post is a weaker example of this, but the principle still holds. Clearly the people who purchase the modified works are aware of the modifications. Nonetheless, there is nothing to prevent those modified works from being shown to other people, there is nothing to insure that the nature of the alterations being made is complete. Ergo, there is some potential damage to the economic value of the author, thus the existence of derivative works rules.
The public has a right to modify works for their own use.
You seem confused by two different tests that are both present in copyright law, both of which are not entirely black-and-white checkboxes. There is the question of whether you harm the economic interest of the author, which we've covered here so far. However, there is also the separate question of whether the personal doing the modification is doing it for "their own use", which is clearly *not* the case in the case of CleanFlix, CleanFlix clearly has a commercial interest of their own.
This brings me to another point. Let me put together another hypothetical. I create a new movie called "Hot Beer Dudes on the Run" or some such, and sell it. CleanFlix gets people to pay them for my version instead of theirs, without my permission. The idea that "it doesn't matter because CleanFlix bought a copy for each copy they sold" mitigates the possiblity that a cleaned up version of HBDR would actually be worth more than the original copy. Now, I will note that CleanFlix is in the business of making money. So, I will posit that they either make, or intend to make a profit. This means that the market value of the cleaned-up movies is in some circumstances greater than the value of the originals. CleanFlix these modified versions of the movies cuts into my right as the "fine art auteur" of HBDR to pimp my own cleaned-up modified versions of the movies.
Now, you might ask, why didn't I release a cleaned-up version of HBDR? Well, maybe I did. It's done all the time, television networks run the right to make cut versions of movies within some combination of economic return to the copyright holder and potentially some acceptance of the cuts by copyright holder. But if I never did, maybe it's because I've decided that it's in my long-term economic interest to never do that, that the damage that such a warm, wholesome cleaned-up version should not sully my pr0nalicious rep. Either way, I've got an interest in HBDR not coming in and cutting into my short-term or long-term economic interests, either way, CleanFlix takes my work and uses it in part to further their interests while decreasing mine.
I betcha a buck CleanFlix signs deals, just like the TV networks already do, to produce cleaned-up versions of flicks. The world will be kept safe from undedited versions of HBDR, but CleanFlix won't do it to their profit, at the expense of the copyright holder.
I'm a nature photographer.
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.