Court Rules Against Sanitizing Films
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. . . .
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. . . .
Associated Press, July 8
Full Version: CleanFlicks loses lawsuit
Great! Now I'm gonna have to teach my kids to engage culture instead of sheltering them from it! On top of that it looks like I'm gonna have to do some actual parenting. Sigh. And I had such a great babysitter.Hmmmmm...
Maybe if I put them in a private Christian school 
...
FWIW, I checked my blog to see if I had ever mentioned CleanFlicks there, and lo and behold, look what I found from last November: Mel Gibson sued 'em for cutting three minutes out of The Passion.
What about the DVD player that does it on the fly (without altering the "product")?
This topic has been moved to the better-suited "Film Criticism and Appreciation" forum...
Alan Thomas wrote:
: What about the DVD player that does it on the fly (without altering the "product")?
Do you remember what the name of that was? I found some online references to a thing called MovieMask, but that website (moviemask.com) is down now, and if you click on Google's cache for it, all you get is a note explaining that the company's out of business. I'm not sure if there were any other companies like this.
I do believe that at least ONE company offered a player that came with separate settings for language, sex and violence, and you could select from something like four or five different levels of censorship in each of these categories. In other words, YOU could decide how to edit the film, more-or-less, instead of just trusting some anonymous bozo's censoring instincts -- and, what's more, you could watch the film without any censorship AT ALL, if you wanted. So you could watch it one way with the kids, then another way with the spouse (and perhaps yet another way by yourself!). I have to admit, I liked the sound of that.
Well, perhaps "liked" is too strong a word. But "appreciated" would certainly be accurate enough. I know I certainly didn't "appreciate" any of these OTHER outfits.
: What about the DVD player that does it on the fly (without altering the "product")?
Do you remember what the name of that was? I found some online references to a thing called MovieMask, but that website (moviemask.com) is down now, and if you click on Google's cache for it, all you get is a note explaining that the company's out of business. I'm not sure if there were any other companies like this.
I do believe that at least ONE company offered a player that came with separate settings for language, sex and violence, and you could select from something like four or five different levels of censorship in each of these categories. In other words, YOU could decide how to edit the film, more-or-less, instead of just trusting some anonymous bozo's censoring instincts -- and, what's more, you could watch the film without any censorship AT ALL, if you wanted. So you could watch it one way with the kids, then another way with the spouse (and perhaps yet another way by yourself!). I have to admit, I liked the sound of that.
Well, perhaps "liked" is too strong a word. But "appreciated" would certainly be accurate enough. I know I certainly didn't "appreciate" any of these OTHER outfits.
Here's Mark Moring's commentary on the CleanFlicks ruling: No More Smut Editors?
Aaaaaaaaaand here come the reader responses to it.
Aaaaaaaaaand here come the reader responses to it.
QUOTE(Jeffrey Overstreet @ Jul 18 2006, 01:14 PM) [snapback]118642[/snapback]
Here's Mark Moring's commentary on the CleanFlicks ruling: No More Smut Editors?
Aaaaaaaaaand here come the reader responses to it.
It's amazing how quickly people forget that the tables could be turned. Would the outraged readers really have no problem with a company buying Bibles from Zondervan, editing them to taste, then re-selling them? Or maybe I could buy the latest Michael W. Smith album, add in a few choice beats and sexual lyrics to spice things up, and re-sell them myself. MWS meets NWA. I could make a killing...
By the way, I have a slightly different (and not yet completely formed) opinion about the auto-editing dvd player. If I want to have my dvd player skip all the bad words, I tend to think that's my perogative - same as if I want to read Huck Finn and skip all the pronouns.
CleanFlicks thinks it has found a loophole. Me, I still wonder why people don't just use ClearPlay or Cuts Inc.
More trouble for Clean Flix.
This time, it's a very different kind of trouble.
(Are CleanFlix and CleanFlicks the same thing? I'm finding conflicting reports...)
This time, it's a very different kind of trouble.
(Are CleanFlix and CleanFlicks the same thing? I'm finding conflicting reports...)
Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:
: (Are CleanFlix and CleanFlicks the same thing? I'm finding conflicting reports...)
No idea, but a preliminary scan suggests maybe not. The story you link to is about "Daniel D. Thompson" and calls him a "co-owner" of Clean Flix, which is described as "a business in Orem" and a "store" that "closed in December after threats of legal action from Hollywood studios" -- but the CleanFlicks website is still up and running, and gives the organization's mailing address as "P.O. Box 230, Pleasant Grove, UT 84062". Then again, Google Maps indicates Orem and Pleasant Grove are only an 11-minute drive apart, so geography wouldn't be indicative of anything here.
Hmmm. The Associated Press story I quoted a year and a half ago quotes "CleanFlicks chief executive Ray Lines", and this New York Times story from January 2001, summarized here, also quotes Ray Lines and indicates that CleanFlicks is located in both places. So, are they the same company, or are they two different companies occupying the same geographic space and using extremely similar-sounding names?
Aha. If you google "ray lines" and "daniel thompson" together, the top result is this news story from July 2006, which quotes both "CleanFlicks CEO Ray Lines" and "Daniel Thompson, owner of the four CleanFlicks shops in Utah County", the latter of whom is quoted as saying, "I think it's ridiculous that you can't watch a movie without seeing sex, nudity or extreme violence. I don't understand why they're trying to keep that in there." (You don't, huh?) And on THAT occasion, CleanFlicks was one of four companies being sued by the Hollywood studios -- the others of which were called CleanFilms, Family Flix USA and Play It Clean Video.
So, "Clean Flix" would seem to be a mis-spelling of CleanFlicks. Maybe they shut down the store(s) but kept the website going.
Unless, um, the new news story called the guy "Daniel D. Thompson" to distinguish him from the other, regular, "Daniel Thompson".
: (Are CleanFlix and CleanFlicks the same thing? I'm finding conflicting reports...)
No idea, but a preliminary scan suggests maybe not. The story you link to is about "Daniel D. Thompson" and calls him a "co-owner" of Clean Flix, which is described as "a business in Orem" and a "store" that "closed in December after threats of legal action from Hollywood studios" -- but the CleanFlicks website is still up and running, and gives the organization's mailing address as "P.O. Box 230, Pleasant Grove, UT 84062". Then again, Google Maps indicates Orem and Pleasant Grove are only an 11-minute drive apart, so geography wouldn't be indicative of anything here.
Hmmm. The Associated Press story I quoted a year and a half ago quotes "CleanFlicks chief executive Ray Lines", and this New York Times story from January 2001, summarized here, also quotes Ray Lines and indicates that CleanFlicks is located in both places. So, are they the same company, or are they two different companies occupying the same geographic space and using extremely similar-sounding names?
Aha. If you google "ray lines" and "daniel thompson" together, the top result is this news story from July 2006, which quotes both "CleanFlicks CEO Ray Lines" and "Daniel Thompson, owner of the four CleanFlicks shops in Utah County", the latter of whom is quoted as saying, "I think it's ridiculous that you can't watch a movie without seeing sex, nudity or extreme violence. I don't understand why they're trying to keep that in there." (You don't, huh?) And on THAT occasion, CleanFlicks was one of four companies being sued by the Hollywood studios -- the others of which were called CleanFilms, Family Flix USA and Play It Clean Video.
So, "Clean Flix" would seem to be a mis-spelling of CleanFlicks. Maybe they shut down the store(s) but kept the website going.
Unless, um, the new news story called the guy "Daniel D. Thompson" to distinguish him from the other, regular, "Daniel Thompson".
You'll notice that the misspelling of "Flix" might be due to the mention of another kind of, um, "Flix" in the same news story (my original source).
Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:
: You'll notice that the misspelling of "Flix" might be due to the mention of another kind of, um, "Flix" in the same news story (my original source).
Yeah, that had occurred to me.
: You'll notice that the misspelling of "Flix" might be due to the mention of another kind of, um, "Flix" in the same news story (my original source).
Yeah, that had occurred to me.
CleanFlicks Fights Back
CleanFlicks, once popular with Christians and families for its video "sanitizing" service, is working overtime to distance itself from a sex scandal involving a Utah man who apparently claimed he once worked with the company.
On Friday, CleanFlicks filed a federal lawsuit again Daniel Dean Thompson, who was recently arrested for allegedly paying a 14-year-old girl for sex. According to a press release, CleanFlicks is seeking damages for "harming the firm by illegally claiming a business relationship with the firm and infringing its trade name and trademarks." . . .
Christianity Today, February 2
- - -
As I say at my blog, "If this claim is accurate, it is curious that CleanFlicks did not sue Thompson for trademark infringement a few years ago, when he was being quoted alongside CEO Ray Lines as though he were a representative of the company in stories such as this one. It is also kind of funny that a company which has, itself, been sued by the studios for infringing on their properties would now be suing someone else for infringing on its own trademarks."
CleanFlicks, once popular with Christians and families for its video "sanitizing" service, is working overtime to distance itself from a sex scandal involving a Utah man who apparently claimed he once worked with the company.
On Friday, CleanFlicks filed a federal lawsuit again Daniel Dean Thompson, who was recently arrested for allegedly paying a 14-year-old girl for sex. According to a press release, CleanFlicks is seeking damages for "harming the firm by illegally claiming a business relationship with the firm and infringing its trade name and trademarks." . . .
Christianity Today, February 2
- - -
As I say at my blog, "If this claim is accurate, it is curious that CleanFlicks did not sue Thompson for trademark infringement a few years ago, when he was being quoted alongside CEO Ray Lines as though he were a representative of the company in stories such as this one. It is also kind of funny that a company which has, itself, been sued by the studios for infringing on their properties would now be suing someone else for infringing on its own trademarks."
Conflicting perspectives are piling up here. Sheesh. Check out the one that begins, "While Dan did make a mistake..."
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