Firm Sues Hollywood Directors in Bid to Edit Films
Reuters

A Colorado company on Thursday sued 16 Hollywood directors, including Steven Spielberg and Sydney Pollack, seeking the right to edit "objectionable" material such as sex and violence from movies. CleanFlicks of Colorado and Robert Huntsman, who has a patent pending for a new way to edit movies, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Denver seeking a judgement that would declare it constitutional to provide edited movies to the public for private home viewing.

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But one could probably conceive a product that skirts the copyright issue, such as: let's say their system is some kind of ancillary device where the customer uses his already purchased studio DVD and this company then sells a corresponding CD-ROM or ROM chip or whatever, that has timecode control cues on it, corresponding to the time code of the DVD. Both the studio's DVD and the company's CD-rom go into a double draw DVD "clean" player. The Clean-Movie company, or whatever they call themselves, would be supplying the cues that would control the DVD. The consumer then selects "no foul language" and the company's control CD-ROM would mute the audio in the preselected spots; or the consumer might have a choice to select to eliminate very violent, moderately violent, or any violent scenes, etc.; the company's cues would control the DVD and force it to skip those scenes....same with sexual content. This would not involve any copying of the original copyrighted content. Any other method which involves making a "clean" version of the original, well, unless this company thinks their lawyers can go into court and prove that the First Amendment negates the entire body of copyright law, they are dead in the water. It will be an interesting fight. Unfortunately if their "clean machine" involves any kind of duplication, it will be a fight this company will certainly loose.

This claim is almost as ludicrous as the network executive (can't remember who) who stated recently that the Tivo (spelling?) system which allows consumers to skip commercials should be outlawed because it violates the "unwritten contract between the broadcasters and the viewers;" he also claimed (no doubt while still in his crack/ectstasy cocktail induced stupor) that the network's responsibility is to supply free programming and the viewer's responsibility is to WATCH the commercials that pay for it. These new hard-drive time-shifting devices allow the viewer to skirt their "responsibility" to watch the commercials! So remember boys and girls, when you have to get up to go to the john, you are obligated to just sit there and HOLD it, because the network executives believe you have a responsibility to watch their commercial content if you expect to get to watch their free programs. Also, when those commercials come on at twice the volume of the program, it's your obligation NOT to push the Mute button on the remote -- that certainly would be a violation of your contract with the networks. In fact, if this logic be extended to it's conclusion, the remotes themselves should be declared illegal.

By the same token, if I watch all the commercials BEFORE say LAW AND ORDER, but then am interrupted by a phone call, can I claim a refund check from NBC -- I watched the commercials but didn't watch the program?

How the new hard-drive recorders are any different from what I have been doing for decades and that is, recording any of prime-time programming that I might want to watch (not much, actually) on VHS tape and then watching it later in the wee hours when I get home from the theatre. I guess I will need to surrender within the week to the broadcast police, because in my crime spree of commercial skipping, I must have fast forwarded through hours and hours of commercials in my lifetime. I admit it -- I am a career criminal. I shirked my obligation as a network viewer....I've broken that "assumed contract." Take me away. I am sure that in broadcast prison, the only thing playing on the TV will be the lead-in to the programs, and then an entire hour of COMMERCIALS.

"Airplane" is rated PG and has an in-your-face shot of an ample bosom. "Sixteen Candles" is another PG film that showed a close up shot of a girl's perfect breasts --complete with a "boing" drum sound effect. Many millions of people saw Kate Winslet's tits in "Titanic". The opening of Jaws had a naturally well-endowed surfer girl flopping in the breeze as she skinny dipped into the ocean. No nippleage was shown though ("Jaws" could have justifiably been tagged with an R rating for its violent, gory content).

I don't understand the fuss over some exposed breasts. If anything, more people should be raising strong objections about the often violent and cruel content of so many films these days. Also, it seems okay for the most purile, basist subject matter to be talked about at length and dramatized on daytime and primetime network TV.

The saying used to be, "vanity, vanity....all is vanity." Today it's "hypocrisy, hypocrisy...all is hypocrisy." All the vehemence about nipples and "curse words" is nothing but a smoke-screen to cover the monumental lack of real morality or any kind of ethical center. We focus on wholly irrelevant issues and substitute them for real moral qualities like honesty, respect, kindness. Polluting the planet a mortal sin? Not in this culture -- it's not even a concept. We have reduced our ethics to what happens between the navel and the knee-caps -- everything else is irrelevant and fair game.

And i guess, that's what there is in it.

By the way: There were no money at all this time 'round. -Sad !