BLEEP! Censoring Hollywood

[Tard]

Anybody catch the AMC / ABC News Production of BLEEP! Censoring Hollywood last night? I'm shocked these mormons are able to get away with this!

Here's the lowdown, for those who missed the 45-minute special (1/2 hour with commercials cut), though am sure AMC will rebroadcast it over again at some point. Mormons, who have religious objections to language, sex & violence in movies, will buy one copy of a current release DVD, re-edit the movie on their home computers, then burn hundreds of copies of said movie to sell & rent from DVD stores & rental shops.

There are three major companies mentioned doing this; CleanFlicks, Clean Films & Family Flix. The last of which is the most strict about content, even deleting references to homosexuality & any mention of God which doesn't have religious significance! How many of you've seen a movie where the leads are confronted by a wondrous/shocking sight, like an incredibly vast landscape after emerging from a cave, and say "Oh my God!"... Well, that's profane, and cut.

What I don't really understand is how the legal battle between these basement 'companies' & "minimum-wage editors" have been able to continue editing other peoples movies without the filmmakers or DGA's approval? There's been a lawsuit bouncing between these three 'companies' and 16 Hollywood directors for a number of years now with no end in sight. Something's just not right in Hollywood when they can't shut these companies down for altering copyrighted material, or piracy. There was short mention of something called 'Family Movie Act', or something like that, allowing individuals to edit movies for their own private use, but not for selling! Even more annoying, they're making kid-versions of R-rated movies, were never intended to be viewed by children in the first place! Examples mentioned were Aliens, Saving Private Ryan, The Matrix series, Traffic, etc. How many of you would have been bored to sleep if you were 8-years old watching 'Traffic'? Why don't these parents just rent PG and under movies? The rating system was enacted for a purpose, ya know.

[Tard]

AHH, methinks that broadcast was planned very precisely.

From today's Variety:

Wed., Apr. 27, 2005

<H3>Bush passes disc filtering bill</H3>

Tech lets parents censor DVDs

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday signed legislation aimed at helping parents keep their children from seeing sex scenes, violence and foul language in movie DVDs.
The bill gives legal protections to the fledgling filtering technology that helps parents automatically skip or mute sections of commercial movie DVDs. Bush signed it privately and without comment, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

The legislation came about because Hollywood studios and directors had sued to stop the manufacture and distribution of such electronic devices for DVD players. The movies' creators had argued that changing the content — even when it is considered offensive — would violate their copyrights.

The legislation, called the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, creates an exemption in copyright laws to make sure companies selling filtering technology won't get sued out of existence.

Critics of the bill have argued it was aimed at helping one company, Utah-based ClearPlay Inc., whose technology is used in some DVD players. ClearPlay sells filters for hundreds of movies that can be added to such DVD players for $4.95 each month. Hollywood executives maintain that ClearPlay should pay them licensing fees for altering their creative efforts.

Unlike ClearPlay, some other companies produce edited DVD copies of popular movies and sell them directly to consumers.

In a nod to the studios, the legislation contains crackdowns on copyright infringement by explicitly providing no legal protections for those companies that sell copies of the edited movies, creating new penalties for criminals who use small videocameras to record copies of first-run films in movie theaters, and setting tough penalties for anyone caught distributing a movie or song prior to its commercial release.

The legislation also reauthorizes a Library of Congress program dedicated to saving rare, culturally significant works, such as home movies, silent-era films and other works that are unlikely to be protected by the big studios.

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All which concerned me was the 2nd to last paragraph.

[Tard]

http://www.cleanflicks.com/index.html

http://www.cleanfilms.com/index.phtml

http://www.familyflix.com/

(OMFG!! Click on the 'Editing' bar on the homepage of the bottom-bottomfeeder, and read what this uptight ice-queen is removing from the movies!!)

I won't condemn anyone sending hate-mail to any of their pages. (just don't blame me for doing it) [img]wink.gif[/img]

[MrClarinet]

Religious types have waaaaaaaaaaaay too much say over your country at the moment. Shame, considering the constitution was written as a secularist document.

[Krugersgirl]

Oy vey. [img]frown.gif[/img]

[Tard]

Blame it on the elected gawd & his son.