12 Jul 06 Axing sex, swearing from films violates copyright

Deleting swearing, sex and violence from films on DVD or VHS violates copyright laws, a U.S. judge has ruled in a decision that could end controversial sanitizing done for some video-rental chains, cable services and the internet.

The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by 16 U.S. directors, including Steven Spielberg, Robert Redford and Martin Scorsese, against three Utah-based companies that “scrub” films.

Judge Richard P. Matsch decreed on Thursday in Denver, Colo., that sanitizing movies to delete content that may offend some people is an “illegitimate business.” [.continue.]

Illegitimate or not I think these companies provide a good service. Since there are about 90 companies out there doing this apparently there is a market place for them. I do think DVDs that have been ’sanitized’ should be clearly marked so someone isn’t fooled into buying an edited copy of the movie. This is all about choice, giving people that don’t want to see the sex, violence, language or gore but wants to enjoy the movie a chance to watch it.

“Their 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.”

Is this the same public interest that gets served by editing movies shown on broadcast TV? Language that is redub typically badly or muted out all together. Scenes deleted for content or for time constraints? Why isn’t their reputations hurt over that?

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