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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.'''
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.
Parents don't use DVR's to produce commercially sold edited copies of content published by another party.
I think the difference there is that you're not distributing your edited copy to the public.
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!
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.
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.
Any now for your viewing pleasure. Some naughty bits.
B*m
T*ts
Kn*ckers
Semprini
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.
Oh, yeah, http://www.clearplay.com/
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
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.
This is voluntary censorship, though. Suppose I've bought Kill Bill and want to see it, but not the violent bits, I could've sent it to this company. No one would've forced me to, though.
There is nothing wrong with people viewing censored material when they asked for it to be censored for them. This decision is effectively censoring censorship!
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.
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.
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 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.