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Editing movies ruled illegal

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I just read this on http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2006/07/editing_movies_.html:

Associated Press: Court Rules against Sanitizing Films. Companies like CleanFlicks, Play It Clean Video, and CleanFilms.com have been editing purchased copies of movies and renting them to customers, but a U.S. district court ruled that this practice violated copyright laws.

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."


Hmmm . . . any guesses on what the verdict would be on fan edits? =(
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Obviously this isn't aimed at fan edits, but the arrow is definitely pointing at the right direction. also the aforementioned sites and companies were renting/selling them for profit. this doesn't go for fan edits either since they are just given away.

*shrug*

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Don't they have better thing to do than to rule that editing is illegal - even though Hollycrap is getting their money for the movie purchased by those companies?
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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It's interesting that, in countries with insane censorship laws (like Malaysia, where I grew up), editing movies and TV shows for "inappropriate" content (often with REALLY bad editing that sticks out worse than any graphic scene could), is a really common practice for TV stations and movie theaters. For example, when "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" was aired in Malaysia, every occurance of the word "morphin' " was cut out, even in the theme song (and the corresponding words in the title were blanked out), for fear that innocent kids would mistake it for the drug "morphine" (!!!). When I saw "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" in a Malaysian theater, there were very obvious (and very distracting) cuts all over the place. (The movie was so bad anyway that I never bothered to find out what I missed.) In Singapore, particularly graphic movies are often released twice in theaters -- a sanitized version first, followed by the uncut version rated R-21 (21 and above).

I wonder what movie producers would say about that.
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I for one am glad of the ruling. These oversensitive conservatives need to learn that they can't profit off their tinkering of other people's art.

Oh no! You're kids might see a boob! God forbid they masturbate!

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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That is different Wmgan. Movies are often censored for television and in foreign countries by the studios in order to conform to the respective codes and regulations. For instance in the UK you cannot show a headbutt or nunchucks in a kids movie, which is why the AOTC Jango Fett headbutt is censored there.

The article posted is with regards to private companies selling/renting/profiting from unauthorized edits of films. This is the same as me selling or renting, for example, The Shroud of the Darkside, ep II edit. So really the response to all of this is "duh." I had thought this had already been ruled--i remember in 1998 a video company offered copies of Titanic with the nude scene cut out and they were shut down.
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Originally posted by: Mavimao
I for one am glad of the ruling. These oversensitive conservatives need to learn that they can't profit off their tinkering of other people's art.

Oh no! You're kids might see a boob! God forbid they masturbate!


You're being an idiot. This has nothing to do with conservative or liberal, Mavi, or what is censored and what isn't. Both persuasions are equally guilty of trying to get thigns they don't like banned. *coughPassionoftheChrsitcough*


The only bearing it has on us is whether it effects fan-editing.

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I am not being an idiot. If you had read the article, this case is about a specific case against a specific company. A company who takes films, takes out content that a group of conservative-minded people feel is offensive and then sells it. That infringes copywrite and they should not be allowed to do it.

The case with The Passion of the Christ is a completely different story. The people calling for its ban were not infringing on copywrite. They were concerned about backlash against Jews (whose claims I feel were exagerrated IMO - I personally could care less about a film about Jesus getting beat up)

I do excuse myself for making generalizations about people, but when I heard about this story last year or whenever it was, I found it perposterous.

As far as fan-edits are concerned, this ruling is nothing more than a reminder that you can't take copywrited material and sell it without having the rights to do it. Fan edits are not being sold - they are meerily a hobby passed and shown between friends. It's fine. The REAL issue we should be concerned about is the DMCA and how that affects edits made from DVD sourced material.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Nothing that occurs on this site regarding edits or alternate versions is legal, despite whatever murky "rules" surround the discussion/distribution of fan made DVDs. Not that anyone here really cares, but in terms of law, the issue is black and white.
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I guess this means that Wal-Mart is screwed.
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'."
--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
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Kevin A
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Originally posted by: Bossk
I guess this means that Wal-Mart is screwed.


How so?
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I thought Wal-Mart only edited music.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Yeah, how so?

Some one once told me that Wal-Mart edits their DVDs, but that is retarded, and I have seen DVDs that were bought from Wal-Mart and they were not edited.

Also concerning the renting and selling edited movies, from what I understand they buy the originals and when you buy a disc from them you get the original disc along with an edited disc. It seems some people here are taking it to be that they are merely selling content edited bootlegs, which would never have lasted half as long as it has. Things like this have been around for a long time, there used to be places that you could take VHS movies to to be edited, I imagine they would just record over your original with their edited version (but I am not sure, perhaps they gave you a second tape). So if you look at the situation fairly, no harm is really being done to the video industry, they are still getting their money for the film, and the editing place is making a couple of bucks for distributing the films just like any other store that sells DVDs or rents them out. The only real difference is that customers are getting, along with their original DVD, a backup copy with material they find offensive edited out.
By the way, what is the official stance in the US about backing up your legally owned DVDs these days?

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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That's right. It is just CDs. My bad. But I'm sure this will pave the way for similar legislation against editing of audio properties.
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'."
--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
-------------------------
Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com
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What kind of editing does Wal-Mart do to music CDs?
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Swearing. Find a regularly controversial CD at Wal-Mart and look at the price tag. Typically, you will see a black bar stamped on the price tag with the white letters "EDITED." They usually only sell the edited version. I e-mailed them about this and they said it was just company policy to protect consumers by editing questionable content on CDs. When I argued that they don't do this in other media and even sell sex-laden Harlequin romance novels, he never responded.
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'."
--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
-------------------------
Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com
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If parents just payed attention to the music their kids listened to. Why should Wal-Mart be the ones chopping up songs? I mean, you don't even change the meaning by taking out a few offensive words here and there.

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Exactly. And in some cases, the swaering is not just meaningless and gratuitous. For example, when I first came to teh States I bought a Ryan Adams album from Walmart, not realising they edited their CDs. Ryan Adams is a rock/acoustic/alt country singer. He swears from time to time, but only when neccessary and it adds to teh emotion of the songs cos you know he means it. When I heard the first 'bleep' I was shocked, and argued with the customer services clerk at Walmart until she finally caved to my 'but I'm an ignorant foreigner' pleas and gave me my money back. I told her 'where I come from we don't edit our artists'.

War does not make one great.

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Way to fight it, YIYF! I think it's horseshit that they do this and make it so difficult to know ahead of time. I bought an Anthrax album not realizing it was edited. Yeah, there was a lot of dead space in "I'm the Man."
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'."
--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
-------------------------
Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Movies are often censored for television and in foreign countries by the studios in order to conform to the respective codes and regulations.


Actually, I'm pretty sure a lot of the censored TV shows and movies shown in Malaysia are censored not by the studios that produced the titles, but rather the censorship board or some other local entity. It's just too badly done and really detracts from the viewing experience.
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Their censoring laws are just silly. They censored any instance of the world "Morphing" from the first seasons of Power Rangers because it sounded like "Morphine".

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"When I heard the first 'bleep' I was shocked, and argued with the customer services clerk at Walmart until she finally caved to my 'but I'm an ignorant foreigner' pleas and gave me my money back. I told her 'where I come from we don't edit our artists'. "

There was actually a "beep"?!? LOL! Couldn't they have done something a little less distracting, like reversing that particular section of the audio? How retarded. Do they still do this?

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Originally posted by: Bossk
Way to fight it, YIYF! I think it's horseshit that they do this and make it so difficult to know ahead of time. I bought an Anthrax album not realizing it was edited. Yeah, there was a lot of dead space in "I'm the Man."


Frank Zappa cries in heaven.
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
"When I heard the first 'bleep' I was shocked, and argued with the customer services clerk at Walmart until she finally caved to my 'but I'm an ignorant foreigner' pleas and gave me my money back. I told her 'where I come from we don't edit our artists'. "

There was actually a "beep"?!? LOL! Couldn't they have done something a little less distracting, like reversing that particular section of the audio? How retarded. Do they still do this?


Yes things are still bleeped. Very often. Or just muted. I suppose that this doesn't apply to editing for televsion?

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
Their censoring laws are just silly. They censored any instance of the world "Morphing" from the first seasons of Power Rangers because it sounded like "Morphine".


Yes, I mentioned that in an earlier post. Did that happen anywhere else besides Malaysia?