Selling Alterable Versions of Star Wars Is Still Infringement, Says Court (arstechnica.com) 180
A federal court ruled that video-on-demand streaming service, VidAngel, which enables the filtering of objectionable content to make it family friendly, is breaking U.S. copyright law. Ars Technica reports: VidAngel buys movie discs and decrypts and rips them. It then streams versions that allow customers to filter out nudity, profanity, and violence. In doing so, it breached the performance rights of Disney, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Brothers, the court ruled. VidAngel purchased a disc for every stream it sold, some 2,500 titles in all. "Star Wars is still Star Wars, even without Princess Leia's bikini scene," the opinion said. Just because objectionable content is removed, that doesn't necessarily transform the content enough to allow this type of behavior under a fair use analysis, the court wrote Thursday. VidAngel also unsuccessfully argued that it was protected under the Family Movie Act (FMA) of 2005. That legislation allows the cracking of encryption to remove objectionable content so long as no fixed copy of the altered version is created. The court didn't agree, however, because VidAngel didn't have the permission in the first place to stream the content.
Not news (Score:5, Insightful)
The court didn't agree, however, because VidAngel didn't have the permission in the first place to stream the content.
Which basically means that's what the court ruled on, and videos being altered in this fashion before stream never even came up.
Nothing to see here. No precedent was set regarding the actual act of alterations.
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Re: Not news (Score:1)
No doubt.
Under the test for fair use, this is clearly not.
It is done to create a marketable "less objectionable" version of the movie, so that's a loss. It's a fictional work, so that's a loss. It's being used to sell a streaming service, so that's a loss, and almost the entirety of the work is provided uncut, so that's a loss.
How did they ever think fair use would work?
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It did come up in a minor way: "Just because objectionable content is removed, that doesn't necessarily transform the content enough to allow this type of behavior under a fair use analysis". Essentially the court implies that censorship alone is a breach of copyright.
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It's not implying that at all. It's implying that censorship is not enough to excuse a breach of copyright.
It is Not "Censorship" (Score:1)
Censorship is an organization in authority saying: "You can't watch this part of the movie." VidAngel was giving people the choice of how they wanted to watch the movie. VERY DIFFERENT from censorship.
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No, the court implied that censorship doesn't stop an otherwise valid copyright claim.
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Essentially the court implies that censorship alone is a breach of copyright.
No the court is saying selling any alteration without the permission of the copyright owner is a breach of copyright. While VidAngel might want the court to rule on whether their alterations are justified or moral, the court doesn't have to decide that.
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It did come up in a minor way: "Just because objectionable content is removed, that doesn't necessarily transform the content enough to allow this type of behavior under a fair use analysis". Essentially the court implies that censorship alone is a breach of copyright.
Oh please. This is blatant infringement.
Fair use would be
This is not even remotely close to fair use. Edited movie for content is still a movie you can watch and enjoy. Analysis and commentary with select clips from the film, that's fair use.
I mean, really? Do you think when a broadcast television station edits a movie to fit into the time allotted is 'fair use', too?
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Slashdot ate the part of my comment, correction:
Fair use would [insert 1000's of YouTube videos featuring clips from movies with commentary, analysis, etc]
Family viewing act (Score:5, Insightful)
You are incorrect. To understand this better one needs to actually have read the Family Viewing Act. It contains some rather surprising, and refreshing, exceptions to copyright laws and content delivery restrictions. What Vid Angel and others are doing seems to be highly protected under this law.
The strategy the content companies have taken is the "bring me a rock" strategy where every company before and after vid angel that tries to sell bowlderized films, the company says yes that's all legal if you do it correctly but you are doing it wrong. They then fail to spell out what to them would be doing it right. Just everybody is doing it wrong.
I really enjoyed vid angel's original model because it made is affordable to strip out content of films that I was uncomfortable showing kids in the house (not just my kids). Their later model was much less convenient so I didn't use it.
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You are incorrect. To understand this better one needs to actually have read the Family Viewing Act. It contains some rather surprising, and refreshing, exceptions to copyright laws and content delivery restrictions. What Vid Angel and others are doing seems to be highly protected under this law.
I've read the act. Please cite which section allows VidAngel to do this.
The strategy the content companies have taken is the "bring me a rock" strategy where every company before and after vid angel that tries to sell bowlderized films, the company says yes that's all legal if you do it correctly but you are doing it wrong. They then fail to spell out what to them would be doing it right. Just everybody is doing it wrong.
Except that you just said that the Family Viewing Act protects them. Have you read it because it clearly says that VidAngel should not do what they did.
Quoting family viewing act summary (Score:3)
Title II: Exemption from Infringement for Skipping Audio and Video Content In Motion Pictures - Family Movie Act of 2005 - (Sec. 202) Creates an exemption from copyright infringement for: (1) the making imperceptible, by or at the direction 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 (2) the creation or provision of technology tha
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Hurwitz seemed skeptical. "The central issue for me is ... you're not transmitting from the one that you actually bought from them," he said. "You're transmitting from a copy that you've ripped. ... Why is that 'from an authorized copy' language not fatal to your claim?"
Also you seemed to ignore "no fixed copy of the altered version". If they ripped it and then made changes it to, VidAngel violated both (1) and (2)
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The battle over whether a copy has to be specially licensed for rental has already been fought, and the answer is no. There are rental editions of films but they are not about securing a distribution license. And in any case, the viewer in this case owns the physical media at the time of playback.
Re: Quoting family viewing act summary (Score:2)
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How else would you transmit it if not in digital format. You have to rip it to edit it. The law allows editing and transmitting.
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No it does not.. Wow you really are clueless when it comes to the term, "authorized copy". You are aware of the FBI Warning screens in EVERY single DVD and Bluray movie right?
These films are sold for home use only. Any duplication, reproduction, public performance or commercial use is strictly prohibited
As a private citizen you can rip the video for the purposes of format and space shifting. You cannot sell the ripped digital video in any way. You can publicly broadcast the video, etc. As a business, VidAngel has even less rights under Fair Use.
But don't take my word for it: The 9th Circuit decision says it all [uscourts.gov].
The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that VidAngelâ(TM)s copying infringed the plaintiffsâ(TM) exclusive reproduction right. Because VidAngel did not filter authorized copies of movies, it was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its defense that the Family Movie Act of 2005 exempted it from liability for copyright infringement. VidAngel also was unlikely to succeed on its fair use defense.
So either a panel of j
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Sadly, ClearPlay has been a pretty poorly run company at times, but they are definitely the pioneers and they actually play by the rules instead of trying to play games to drum up public support for illegal business practices under the guise of this "oh noes, big bad Hollywood is trying to kill off filtering" nonsense.
My understanding is that ClearPlay works on top of streaming services but not necessarily partnered with them. Which means that at any time, these services can stop working if they change their APIs. I understand this is the reason ClearPlay no longer works with GooglePlay.
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I've read the act.
If you did, you would have read the transmission provision.
But you didn't, which is why you missed it. More important however is that you are a fucking liar claiming to have read it.
Re: Family viewing act (Score:2)
All Gee Movies (Score:1)
Any responsible business leader would record a Sale as a Sale, more reveunues and more porfits are the Real Bottom line.
As long as VidAngel pays full wholesale price for movies & streaming agreements, I don't care if they only show 35 minutes of a two hour film.
Their customers Want filtered product.
We want to sell more product.
VidAngel expands sales to the Gee Rated market space.
Sales and profits we wouldn't normally get.
So as long as Viewers are paying us full price, I really don't care if they wat
Re: Not news (Score:2)
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So only precedent-setting cases are news?
No. But news of some joker streaming copyrighted material over the internet without permission and busted for it definitely isn't.
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Article I, Section 8, paragraph 8: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The "The Congress shall have Power to..." is sort of carried over from the first paragraph. That's where Intellectual Property comes in.
There goes my plan :( (Score:4, Funny)
1) Remove all scenes of Jar Jar from Episode 1-3
2) Sell new de-Jarred version
3) Profit!!!
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1) Remove all scenes of Jar Jar from Episode 1-3
2) Sell new de-Jarred version
3) Profit!!!
No profit. If you remove all the scenes of Jar Jar what you're left with is:
1. A whiny little kid.
2. A whiny little teenage creeper sexually harassing a politician.
3. An annoying robot.
4. Liam Neeson dying.
5. An animated Yoda talking politics.
6. A rendition of a Starcraft battle with only marginally better graphics.
7. An old man trying not to look evil with the worst poker face in evil person history.
No one will pay to see that.
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You forgot the part with Darth Maul having the higher ground over Obi-wan.
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I didn't forget anything. I simply used electrotherapy to forcefully remove those memories from my brain. :-)
Re: There goes my plan :( (Score:1)
Christmas special
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No, that would be what you could make of the scenes you cut. At least quality-wise.
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Episode I was an overly long advertainment for Lucasarts' podracer game.
I mean, for real, what is that movie but a huge, elaborate scavenger hunt for the parts of little Anny's racer and a race that feels like it takes up about half the movie's run time?
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Episode I was an overly long advertainment for Lucasarts' podracer game.
I mean, for real, what is that movie but a huge, elaborate scavenger hunt for the parts of little Anny's racer and a race that feels like it takes up about half the movie's run time?
The podracing story line was meant as an exposition on the characters involved, to make the viewer connect with them, and understand their motivations in the latter films (i.e. Anakin trying save his mother, then Padme). It does a decent job of this. It's not much different than how we were introduced to Luke. Just a lot longer. In my opinion, there are other things in the film worse than the podracing story line. But it could have been shortened by a lot.
"A federal court ruled..." (Score:2)
Wrong. The court only ruled that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail, and that the defendant's motion to terminate the preliminary injunction was denied. No precedent here.
I also have to say that I agree. Purchasing a DVD doesn't entitle you to stream the entire video to others, in any form. If you want a "clean" version of a movie, you can (1) sell a player that skips the objectionable parts or (2) make a video yourself. The copyright holder gets to control the distribution and modification of its work.
Re:"A federal court ruled..." (Score:5, Informative)
The service actually sells the DVD to the customer for $20. After the customer is done with the DVD, they sell the DVD back to VidAngel for $19. So, in fact, the DVD is the customers at the time that the customer is using VidAngel's service to stream the customer's DVD to the customer's PC.
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The only question then will be if a DVD (or I assume Blu-ray) license also confers streaming rights. I hope they win. If you already paid for the license to a copyrighted work, it shouldn't matter to the content creator how you get
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They are playing a bit of a semantic game, but the "streaming" aspect should be a legal red herring, in this case.
The "you own the DVD" portion of their service basically renders the service a complicated DVD player with a really long connection to your monitor.
If you accept the model they have constructed - their customers buy the DVD and then the company buys it back - then they have a pretty good argument that they are not violating copyright.
But it is clear that because they are in fact not selling anyt
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From an AC elsewhere on the thread, apparently a company called Clearplay [clearplay.com]has done this. They sell a Bluray player and a plugin for chrome that works with Amazon streaming service.
They don't seem to have the granular controls that this other service was touting, but they have the tech in place such that they could enhance their service.
So maybe this is like the early fights with Napster et. al. The early movers won't make it, but the concept will eventually be implemented because the demand is there.
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The "you own the DVD" portion of their service basically renders the service a complicated DVD player with a really long connection to your monitor.
I find it unlikely that the version being streamed is the MPEG1 version found on a DVD which isn't a good format to stream and has a max resolution of 720 x 576 (480p in the US)
If you accept the model they have constructed - their customers buy the DVD and then the company buys it back - then they have a pretty good argument that they are not violating copyright.
And if I don't accept that what they are doing isn't a clear case of copyright infringement? Their argument is circular. You first have to accept it isn't copyright infringement to start for them to win the argument that it isn't copyright infringement.
But it is clear that because they are in fact not selling anything, but renting a viewing of the movie and using "we own the DVD" as a license to stream it, this is not going to fly.
Renting also requires a license which they don't have.
It is a shame that the content providers can't reach some sort of agreement with this kind of service, because there are lots of movies that would be great to watch with the family, but have one or two brief moments that are not appropriate for the kids.
They are agreements. It is
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It's MPEG-2, not MPEG-1. And you're conflating two wildly different issues here:
No I'm not. I'm merely pointing out that what the OP said is technically and legally invalid. The OP said this: "The "you own the DVD" portion of their service basically renders the service a complicated DVD player with a really long connection to your monitor."
In what way is a company ripping a movie from DVD then re-encoding it to be streamed over the Internet the same as "a really long connection to your monitor". In no sense is it the same.
It would make sense for them to re-compress the DVD video into some other format, because it's true that MPEG-2 is comparatively old and inefficient. And re-compressing would seem to be an extremely minor issue, in copyright terms, compared to the other issues being discussed here.
Changing the physical dimensions and format of a movie could un
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When my son was in middle school, he reported to me once that he learned a new word on the playground. It started with "mother" and had another bad word. I asked him, "You do know that word is almost always inappropriate, right?" and that was that. He did seem a little awed by the reaction it got from the teachers.
I also knew a toddler who (a) was fascinated by trucks, and (b) couldn't prono
Re:"A federal court ruled..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it certainly would make enforcement of copyright impossible. All you'd have to do whenever you were accused is to go out and buy a DVD/BluRay and say "look, here's my legal copy". More importantly, it would create a completely unworkable legal concept of "sameness". Consider things like the Star Wars special edition DVDs, is the digital clean-up, new CGI and alternate shooting scene is that the same movie? What about a director's cut, additional dubs and subtitles, a HDR remaster? Is a remix of a song the same song? Is a Linux port of a Windows game the same game? Is the GOTY version the same as the vanilla version? Is the audio book and eBook the same as the paper book? What would a narrator get paid, if people feel they own the book already? How about a translation, does that have any value or are all translations included too? On the other hand, if you say only exactly the same it's easy to make every version have a new cover.
Owning a copy clearly doesn't give you the right to stream it to anyone else, copyright law is pretty clear on that point. The question is whether you can circumvent that through sale and buyback agreements so that temporarily you're the owner and VidAngel is only providing a service to stream your copy to your screen. Basically it's Netflix's old DVD model made all digital where the discs never ship they just make a really, really long virtual HDMI cable over the Internet. Not sure why that would be illegal, streaming a movie you own from your Dropbox account should be legal even though they don't have a distribution license. But I haven't read the legal reasoning...
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On the other end of that "HDMI " cable is not a DVD player - it's a ripped copy that's been permanently altered.
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Have you ever tried streaming MPEG-2 over the web? It's also horribly inefficient. I'm going to say it has been converted to another codec.
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It seems to me that as long as there remains a one to one ratio of copies bought to households watching, streaming is simply a format shift, which is permitted.
I routinely access data from remote drives, what's so special about a video DVD?
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C'mon. I'm the last one to defend anything like the atrocity of a law that we have today and call it copyright, but even I can't keep a straight face saying that this isn't just a cheap attempt at circumventing it.
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The solution isn't to find loopholes in copyright but to change copyright.
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"The service actually sells the DVD to the customer for $20. After the customer is done with the DVD, they sell the DVD back to VidAngel for $19. So, in fact, the DVD is the customers at the time that the customer is using VidAngel's service to stream the customer's DVD to the customer's PC."
Arguably, streaming the content of a DVD to a device that you control is a "fair use" copying of that DVD. (I'm too lazy to look up the case law.) You're not impacting the originator's sales/licensing of that content,
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For a start, if they keep only the one copy as "cloud backup" for the owner, it is allowed to.
Your assertion fails because VidAngel isn't using this cloud copy as a backup. If they are streaming it, it fails the logic test that it is a "backup" for archival purposes.
Since compressing the bits makes the extra copies disappear, just symlinks is fine. If I were writing the system, I would have symlinks for each customer pointing to the DVD they bought.
That makes no sense legally nor technically. At this point it seems like you are looking to justify copyright infringement in any way possible.
Second, that copy is not streamed,another copy, temporary, therefore not a copy for the purposes of copyright, is sent. Again, this is allowed
So you are asserting that VidAngel is not making a copy but multiple copies. That alone is copyright infringement. Second, please cite any case law where VidAngel is allowed to make multiple copie
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In any case, the fact that a competing service exists, hugely pre-dates VidAngel, and has been affirmed legal multiple times, provides further compelling evidence that the issue at hand is NOT the filtering at all (as VidAngel likes to pretend). The filtering itself is perfectly legal, it's the large scale unauthorized use, ripping, copying, and streaming for profit without securing any of the necessary rights and licenses that they're being racked across the coals for, and rightly so.
Filtering itself is not illegal but the method of how VidAngel chose to do so is. Also if you are talking about ClearPlay, the problem with them is that they are not officially partnered with any streaming service as far as I know. Their service works on top of others but not necessarily with them. In the case of Google Play, ClearPlay no longer works as they were relying on certain APIs that GooglePlay has blocked.
Re:"A federal court ruled..." (Score:5, Informative)
Not germane to the current cast, but I should add, VidAngel's current incantation uses streaming services, and instead of a the whole buy/sell DVD method, there is a flat monthly fee of $7 for access to the service, and a customer can watch as much content as they have access to.
It works like this: Customer signs into VidAngel account. Customer then signs into streaming service via VidAngel's website (Amazon, NetFlix, and HBO steaming services are currently supported). Customer then streams any show they would otherwise have access to stream from Amazon (including ones they rent/buy, or have "free" with their Prime account), NetFlix or HBO, but with the filters that they have selected within VidAngel.
There is no reason this couldn't work with other streaming products a customer has access to via VUDU, Hulu, etc. The product is in fact licensed to stream to the customer, and the customer is using a player (VidAngel) to skip/mute the objectionable parts.
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*current case
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Imagine if someone tried selling the movie where the prequels were recut into
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Imagine if someone were to sell an automated bit of editing code that would do the same thing on your own copies of the 3 movies. Pretend it works as a plug-in for the popular PC dvd players. That's clearly legal. It just says "Start playing her
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Apparently Clearplay [clearplay.com] already does this.
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Movies like Return of the Jedi must really suck with all the violence and metal bikini stuff removed. Major parts of the plot would just be missing, like how they escaped from Jabba or Vader losing yet another hand, seeing Luke tortured and turning on his master.
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We're talking about a group of people who base their life on stories that make no sense. You think they'd really notice if one they watch doesn't?
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Nah. Lots of people don't want their 5 year old watching "Ghostbusters" and then running around saying "It's true! This man has no dick!" But otherwise it is very appealing to little kids.
A corpse that has rotted nearly to a skeleton in the driver seat of a taxi is A-OK for a 5 year old but a throwaway dick joke is too much? You people live in a fucked up world. Nearly every effects shot in that movie depicts something way too scary for a 5 year old, from the corpse in the taxi to the banshee in the library to the terror dog chasing across the street. Even Slimer is not the friendly squeaky version depicted in the cartoon. In the movie he's greedy and belligerent and somewhat dangerous.
G
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It works like this: Customer signs into VidAngel account. Customer then signs into streaming service via VidAngel's website (Amazon, NetFlix, and HBO steaming services are currently supported). Customer then streams any show they would otherwise have access to stream from Amazon (including ones they rent/buy, or have "free" with their Prime account), NetFlix or HBO, but with the filters that they have selected within VidAngel.
That doesn't matter. VidAngel has no rights to distribute the movie themselves. That's like saying I have no food license but my friend and neighbor has one so I can sell food out of my restaurant which has no business affiliation with my neighbor.
There is no reason this couldn't work with other streaming products a customer has access to via VUDU, Hulu, etc. The product is in fact licensed to stream to the customer, and the customer is using a player (VidAngel) to skip/mute the objectionable parts.
Other than the copyright infringement?
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Hurwitz seemed skeptical. "The central issue for me is ... you're not transmitting from the one that you actually bought from them," he said. "You're transmitting from a copy that you've ripped. ... Why is that 'from an authorized copy' language not fatal to your claim?"
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Purchasing a DVD doesn't entitle you to stream the entire video to others, in any form.
Even playing it for the rest of the family on the big screen TV?
There are a bunch of qualifiers--"for your own personal use and not as a commercial activity or as a promotion of a commercial activity." It's one thing to show a movie to the family at home, it's another thing to show it at a bar, and it's still another thing to say, "Come to my bar to watch movies and buy my hot wings, beer, and snacks!"
The copyright holder gets to control the distribution and modification of its work.
I like the concept of VidAngel--even if I would never use the service. I have no problem with the idea th
Re: "A federal court ruled..." (Score:2)
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They can rent the physical media. They cannot stream it to anyone who wants to view it via the Internet. That's the crux of what Disney is using to hang them up.
Netflix buys and "rents" physical DVDs. Netflix also streams digital properties - but these are licensed differently, with streaming rights, and the streaming rights are restricted to geographical locations. Netflix is losing Disney streaming as their license is expiring. Netflix can still "rent" the physical DVDs - but they have to actually ma
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For this hotel analogy to hold any water, you'd have to show how imaginary property wears and tears, so that you have to keep it in good repair to keep using it.
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The publisher still making profit after 400 years is subject to competition unrestricted by copyright. The point of copyright is to have a monopoly for a limited time.
Your claims of profit are dishonest, and you've neglected the retailer. Distinguish gross profit from net profit. Retailers (book stores) frequently buy books for 60% of the retail price That gives them 40% gross profit, but after expenses they're lucky if the owner makes enough to live on. The same applies to publishers, although some of the
All part fo the great left-wing war on Xtianity (Score:2)
Damn those activist judges!
What's next, are they going to try to teach evolution in schools?
Fast and Furious - Eyebrow Drift (Score:2)
"Star Wars is still Star Wars, even without Princess Leia's bikini scene..."
Uh, if you filter out all nudity, profanity, and violence from Star Wars, you're cutting out a hell of a lot more than a "nude" bikini scene, especially with Jar Jar Binks being a violent attack on the senses.
I'm not exactly sure what the hell is the point with this kind of filtering. The average Fast and Furious movie would be filtered into 5 minutes of The Rock standing there flexing his eyebrows.
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The average Fast and Furious movie would be filtered into 5 minutes of The Rock standing there flexing his eyebrows.
And it would still be a better love story than Twilight.
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Dude, the Bible is a better love story than Twilight.
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Dude, the Bible is a better love story than Twilight.
"Just then, while everyone was weeping in penitence at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, an Israelite man, flaunting his behavior in front of Moses and the whole assembly, paraded a Midianite woman into his family tent. Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw what he was doing, grabbed his spear, and followed them into the tent. With one thrust he drove the spear through the two of them, the man of Israel and the woman, right through their private parts. That stopped the plague from con
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Hey, it even beats 50 shades of grey!
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What do you suppose happens in that filtered version of Star Wars? The death star *DOESN'T* blow up Alderaan, Obi Wan doesn't disappear, the rebels skim the trench of the death star only to have it NOT blow up, and then at the end, everyone receives the Nobel Peace Prize (Except for Chewie, because fuck him)!
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Filter violence? It's called Star *WARS*! If you can't handle the violence, go watch the "My little Pony" movie.
The lunatics who want this service think violence is just FINE for children, even very small children. But tits terrify them. And they surely won't let their precious snowflakes watch the My Little Pony movie, which doesn't even thinly veil its advocating for bestiality. (Remember kids, bestiality is best!)
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I'd watch a version that skipped past Greedo taking time to line up his shot, firing, missing by like 45 degrees, and then Han shooting in unambiguous self defense.
A version where Han just shoots Greedo in the middle of the conversation, leaving it ambiguous as to whether it was justified (probably??) or not would make a lot more sense for that characters arc down through the rest of the episodes. And also skips over Jabba showing up at the space port to try and intimidate Han by getting his tail stepped on
CleanFlicks already tried a similar model (Score:2)
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If you use, for example, 10 seconds of a movie, you can probably get away with Fair Use. If you use almost the entire movie, no, you can't get away with Fair Use.
The amount of material used is only one factor in determining fair use, and under some circumstances it is absolutely possible to use the entire work under fair use. Were this use ruled sufficiently transformative, it may well have been one of those circumstances. Also I object to your phrasing: "get away with Fair Use." One does not get away with fair use, one exercises one's rights under the law.
Wrong objectionable content (Score:1)
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Violence has it's limits with kids too, but in general violence is an inherent facet of human life. Plants and animals are killed and eaten by humans (and nearly all animals on the planet) on a daily basis. Violence can be made extremely graphic or relatively tame based on the effects used, but even a relatively young child can understand and process when the hero kills the villain, monster etc. Violence is not inherently good or evil, it is a part of life and while parents tend to shield their children
presentation/cuture are everything (Score:2)
Kids grew up seeing adult sex for most of human existence. From adult animals out in nature to actual humans and they likely knew those humans, quite possibly their parents.
Humanity wasn't messed up until modern times somehow saved the children... actually, we treat and value children less in modern "civilized" times.
Not that improper exposure can't cause mental harm but improper exposure to a great many topics can damage a child. Such as killing animals in the wrong way/setting... or not being exposed to
A Variation on Monty Python (Score:2)
High Time for a Law (Score:2)
Regarding post release censoring, it is far past time for a federal law to amend copyright to allow this to be done by any service as long as they offer both an un-altered version as well as the altered version, both clearly described as such (but the original can be locked behind a parental password). Hell, broadcast TV has been doing this exact same thing for what 50 years now...
When will the idiots in Hollywood realize that the old adage "The customer is always right" exists to enhance business. The cu
Another stupid case. (Score:2)
Copyright really needs an agent clause. A timeshifting/commercial removing service should be a totally legit thing.
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I suppose VidAngel could actually step up and buy the rights to cut and re-release StarWars without the 'naughty bits'. Just like the TV networks do with movies like Original Sin [imdb.com] or Don't Look Now [imdb.com]. But I suspect the market for the sanitized versions of such films is so small that the studios just can't be bothered. On the other hand, if the money is good enough, studios will butcher almost anything. I imaging we could even get a version where the Titanic doesn't sink. It's all about money and if some peop
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I suppose VidAngel could actually step up and buy the rights to cut and re-release StarWars without the 'naughty bits'. Just like the TV networks do with movies like Original Sin [imdb.com] or Don't Look Now [imdb.com
I don't think that is how it works. The TV networks do not "buy the rights to cut and re-release" a movie for the most part. For TV showing, a version is created but the TV networks don't own the rights to it. The version most likely made for TV by the copyright owner. That's why you don't see NBC selling their version on Bluray or DVD.
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I suspect that the networks do in fact do exactly this. Because I've seen a few movies made and then broadcast with significant differences in the amount of censoring done. Depending on which network they are shown on. The Ten Commandments [imdb.com] immediately comes to mind. Specifically, that see-through gown that Anne Baxter wears. Some blur it out. Others don't.
That's why you don't see NBC selling their version on Bluray or DVD.
NBC doesn't buy the rights to release discs. If they did, they could release nipples/no nipples versions. Another anecdote: When a local network aired Ron [imdb.com]
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I suspect that the networks do in fact do exactly this. Because I've seen a few movies made and then broadcast with significant differences in the amount of censoring done. Depending on which network they are shown on. The Ten Commandments immediately comes to mind. Specifically, that see-through gown that Anne Baxter wears. Some blur it out. Others don't.
But that doesn't mean the networks have bought a right to do the editing. It means there are multiple versions of edits. If you were a copyright owner which would make more sense: A TV network pays for right to broadcast a movie but being TV there are different edits to be made. Do you 1) grant the TV network the right to cut the movie themselves or 2) create an edit for them?
NBC doesn't buy the rights to release discs. If they did, they could release nipples/no nipples versions.
They certainly buy a right to broadbast. Other than it not getting past network censors would NBC do this. HBO on the other hand sho
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Certainly a network can work with a studio
Do you really think a studio would sign off on an uncontroversial edit (no naughty bits, no violence or bad language) that butchers the plot line of their movie?
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Do you really think a studio would sign off on an uncontroversial edit (no naughty bits, no violence or bad language) that butchers the plot line of their movie?
If they want to broadcast it on TV it is required that they make these changes. That is not up for discussion. So either they can control the edit or grant something the rights to someone else. Which leads me to my question: Do you think that a studio would grant a network (or anyone) the right to make any kind of edit they wanted thus forgoing all creative control.
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Do you think that a studio would grant a network (or anyone) the right to make any kind of edit they wanted thus forgoing all creative control.
Yes. Like cutting out key plot points (no obscenity, violence, etc.) just so they can fit an ad in instead of listening to the characters talk.
If they want to broadcast it on TV it is required that they make these changes.
The network can butcher a production just to fit in some extra advertising.
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gladly give control to a network studio to make any changes they wanted?
Yes.
have to make it TV friendly to pass the censors
Cutting the dialog about the 47 Ronin out of the movie Ronin has absolutely nothing to do with censorship. Not a naughty word or thought in that. But if you don't know the story, the movie doesn't make sense. So there's a cut that the networks made and the studio presumably either signed off on (which I find hard to believe), or had no control over (much more likely) when they handed complete editorial control over to the network.
So, yes. There is precedent for studios handing creative control over to
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Cutting the dialog about the 47 Ronin out of the movie Ronin has absolutely nothing to do with censorship. Not a naughty word or thought in that. But if you don't know the story, the movie doesn't make sense. So there's a cut that the networks made and the studio presumably either signed off on (which I find hard to believe), or had no control over (much more likely) when they handed complete editorial control over to the network.
Listen, I'm sorry that the cut of Ronin was terrible, however, you have yet to demonstrate that the studio gave control to the network for the cut. It was horrific cut but that doesn't mean the studio didn't do it. After all the studio puts out terrible cuts of new movies in the theater.
So, yes. There is precedent for studios handing creative control over to a distribution channel. Just to reach their viewers. The difference here is that the studios don't consider VidAngel's market to be worth reaching. Not that there is some noble principal at work here.
No there is a precedent of the studio making terrible cuts to reach more viewers and get more money. You haven't shown that they've actually handed over creative control.