Slashdot Mirror
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.'''
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.
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
Now wouldn't it be cool if you could apply this decision to Lucas for having Greedo shoot first - now that's offensive!
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
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.
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.
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
Any now for your viewing pleasure. Some naughty bits.
B*m
T*ts
Kn*ckers
Semprini
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.
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.
"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.
Haaa! Now I think I understand why the last time I bought a dvd at walmart, it was only a bunch of short clips of plumbers going to a girl's house, then some vacuum cleaner seller... I was thinking... why did my friend told me to buy that wacko movie. Now I get it! They cut out the violent fighting scenes.
> 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.
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
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.
I think I got the same movie!
What was the deal with the pizza delivery guy going to that one chick's house to deliver a sausage pizza? Did they ever get around to eating the pizza? My copy had that part cut out for some reason (another fight scene?).
Still. the soundtrack was pretty cool.Sort of like that funky old rock music from 70s porn.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
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.
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
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.
Yes, they did get to eat it: the chick shared the pizza with the pool cleaner guy. I didn't actually see them eating the pizza (apparently edited out due to time constraints) but there was part of a scene where the chick and the pool were smiling at each other and there was cheese dripping from the corner of her mouth.
(It must have been really good pizza, they were both making 'mmmm-mmmm' sounds.)
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
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.
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.
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.