'Sanitizing' sex, violence from films illegal, judge rules

'Sanitizing' sex, violence from films illegal, judge rules
Jul. 9, 2006. 08:40 AM


SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ? Sanitizing movies on DVD or VHS tape violates federal copyright laws, and several companies that scrub films must turn over their inventory to Hollywood studios, an appeals judge ruled.

Editing movies to delete objectionable language, sex and violence is an "illegitimate business" that hurts Hollywood studios and directors who own the movie rights, said U.S District Judge Richard P. Matsch in a decision released Thursday in Denver.

"Their (studios and directors) objective . . . is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," the judge wrote. ``There is a public interest in providing such protection.'

Matsch ordered the companies named in the suit, including CleanFlicks, Play It Clean Video and CleanFilms, to stop ``producing, manufacturing, creating" and renting edited movies. The businesses also must turn over their inventory to the movie studios within five days of the ruling.

"We're disappointed," CleanFlicks chief executive Ray Lines said. "This is a typical case of David vs. Goliath, but in this case, Hollywood rewrote the ending. We're going to continue to fight.'


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Bravo!

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I agree, DD. I loathe "edited for content" movies on TV. They're are just insulting to the movies' original creators, not to mention the viewing audience.

The only plus side is that they found a way to make Showgirls even more hilarious with the Photoshopped bras.

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Updated On: 7/10/06 at 03:12 AM

I've rented many movies at Blockbuster that do not mention they are edited but are. For instance, the gay comedy Eating Out had the male frontal nudity edited out and they rent what is labeled a "Special DVD Edition" of Where The Truth Lies with Kevin Bacon and it was shredded as well. That type of thing is ridiculous not to mention disrespectful to film makers who spend lots of time making decisions about what stays and what goes to create the vision of what they want the public to see. So it's not just regular TV that is chopping up films, it is the corner video store as well.

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So... does this only include those companies? What about movies that are shown on airplanes? On network tv?

Movies edited for content on airplanes and network TV are edited with the permission of the copyrightholders, who have full approval rights over the final product. The difference here was that these companies were doing their own editing without permission, which is a violation of federal law.

I still remember the first time I saw Grease on tv.

Right before the big race, Alice Ghostley's character tells John Travolta: "Haul ass, kid". In the dubbed over tv version, she says "Drive, kid."

I think I would like a job writing sanitized dialogue for tv. I could do much better than "Drive, kid."

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