The Washington Post had an article the other day about the popular new “sanitized” DVD versions of popular movies. The sanitizers allow you to watch Titanic without having to confront Kate Winslet’s breast, and so on. As far as I can tell from the article, no court has yet weighed in as to whether the editing falls within the fair use exception or is otherwise legal (although several court cases are pending). The sanitizers think that they are covered because they buy, edit, and resell each DVD, so they are not engaging in piracy.
Personally, I’m more interested in the cultural conflict than the legal one. The directors are outraged at the idea that people will be able to watch only the parts of their films that the viewers deem acceptable. They want to be able to control how their art is seen after they create and release it. I’m not so sure they have much of a claim. Why shouldn’t I, the viewer, get to decide what I want to see? Right now, it’s often an all-or-nothing choice. Because I’m disgusted by so much of what comes across the airwaves, I’ve struck back by getting rid of my TV altogether. This works, but it’s a very crude tool. True, my daughter is not bombarded with commercials glamorizing rape, murder, and sugar cereal, but we have to go over to other peoples’ houses to watch the World Series or the Olympics. TiVo can help solve the problem by editing out the commercials. And I suppose people who really care about viewing certain kinds of shows or movies can pay for cable and only watch, say, the sports channel or C- span.
As a viewer, I tend to favor products and services that give the viewer control over what he or she watches. The sanitizers seem to fit within that rubrick. Obviously, the director has the right to put a gory scene in a movie, but don’t I have just as much of a (moral) right to skip that scene or, better yet, pay someone else to cut that scene out altogether so I don’t have to fast-forward through it? I really resist the idea that I have to be a captive audience for someone else’s vision, with no right to alter the artistic product once it’s been shrink-wrapped. Yet I have the feeling many on this (purportedly?) “center-left” blog will disagree and leap to the defense of the directors. So, bring it on…. As Justice Breyer likes to say at the end of a long speech from the bench — “Now! Tell me why I’m wrong.”
Posted by Administrators on April 20, 2005 at 11:26 AM
Comments
Sanitizing is evil.
An article I wrote:
http://quartertofour.com/thebloodynews/modules/zmagazine/article.php?articleid=80
Posted by: ekm | Dec 1, 2005 1:26:18 PM
Sanitizing is evil.
An article I wrote:
http://quartertofour.com/thebloodynews/modules/zmagazine/article.php?articleid=80
Posted by: ekm | Dec 1, 2005 1:15:52 PM
So, it seems like, in your case, you would be OK with Clearplay or similar outfits selling their products, since it is equivalent to “personal filtering”, but would object to someone selling a version of Titanic that is already edited when I buy it, even if I have to buy the original DVD along with it. In either case, the result is the same – I see an edited movie and I am aware that this movie isn’t the “original” as the director shot it. What do you see as the difference? Would others on the thread agree?
(To be clear, I am not advocating one side or the other – having had this discussion with a friend who uses this technology, I think I know where I stand, but I would like to hear other arguments.)
Posted by: Rishi | Apr 21, 2005 6:41:36 PM
Rishi, that kind of software is exactly what I was referencing earlier. It remains a personal choice of the consumer to filter and otherwise edit the DVDs that are otherwise produced with the director’s vision. My problem is not with parental controls or the personal filtering, my problem is with a commercial enterprise that predicates itself on violating the integrity of a film and then trades on the goodwill of the original film itself.
Posted by: Joel | Apr 21, 2005 4:48:29 PM
The technology for this has now advanced beyond just “selling a sanitized version” described above. What is more common these days is to actually have a DVD player that loads filters on which objectionable parts to skip over, or cut the sound on (see http://www.clearplay.com/ for an example). In this case, you put the _real, actual DVD_ in to this player, and it does the editing for you – skipping over sex scenes, cutting the sound at objectionable words, etc. The information is downloaded by the player, but the person who is watching purchases (or rents) the real DVD. Given this scenario, would the people who object have the same issues?
Posted by: Rishi | Apr 21, 2005 4:17:10 PM
It might be helpful to distinguish between the copyright owner’s economic and non-economic interests.
The economic interests aren’t harmed (at least directly) by the “sanitizing” described in the article, since the sanitizers purchase a copy of the film for every santized version they produce. So, if anything, they are expanding the potential market for the films (which is why the studios are less concerned than the directors).
The non-economic interests are more complicated, and there are at least two: (1) reputation; and (2) integrity. As for the first, the director has a legitimate concern that the audience might think he/she is responsible for the sanitized version. But this interest could be dealt with by a sufficiently strong disclaimer requirement.
The director’s interest in the integrity of the film is a lot trickier. And on this point, I tend to agree with Ariela. I can see why we should respect the director’s artistic vision. But I think the audience has an equally valid interest in deciding how they wish to view that vision. And it’s not clear to me that the director’s interest should always trump.
Finally, if you agree that the consumer could do the editing himself or herself, then why not permit a third-party company to provide that service, since the end-result is essentially the same?
Posted by: Joe Liu | Apr 20, 2005 4:51:58 PM
Who are the people who are making these “sanitized” versions? I’m assuming that they’re third party companies who are not affiliated with the entity or author of the art. In which case isn’t it a violation of intellectual property? These companies are making a profit on someone else’s work. And if it’s legal to edit down scenes in movies why wouldn’t it be legal to edit up – say add a pornagraphic scene?
The editor can alter _Gone with the Wind_ because it’s become public domain. The editor could even edit down a work that isn’t yet public domain but is owned by the editor’s company – so long as the editor has the approval of the author. But an editor could not take a book – let’s say Dan Brown’s _The DaVinci Code_ – and edit out the “offensive” bits and then sell it.
Profiting on altering an artist’s creation is copyright violation. Although, for some reason, I feel like this wouldn’t hold true if the customer bought the unedited version and then sent it to the company to edit out offensive scenes. Once bought by the end customer alterations fall under the rubric of fair use – but I don’t think that holds true if the alterations are made before the customer becomes involved in the transaction.
And, though I realize this is a contradictory point of view I think it breaks down to this. You can’t take my intellectual property, change it, and sell if for a profit. But you can provide a service to the end customer to alter already purchased items.
Posted by: rivki | Apr 20, 2005 3:13:44 PM
Really interesting responses, thank you for making me think harder about this. What I’m getting from Joel is that it’s okay for me (Mom) to fast-forward over Kate’s breast in our home viewing, in part because everyone in the room knows I’m “skipping” part of the video and no one thinks that THIS is the director’s film in its entirety. It would also be okay for me to buy a Van Gogh and satirize it by painting a cartoon over part of it, or to mess with a movie to create a funny documentary about it.
The problem with these sanitizers is twofold, then: 1. The sanitized version is passed off as “Titanic,” the real thing, when it’s not, and 2. Someone is making money off of this.
As to 2., one interesting thing is that the STUDIOS are not particularly up in arms about the practice (at least, that’s how it seems), because THEY are still making money off of each sale and, I guess, they figure they are getting at least some additional buyers who would not otherwise see the movie at all.
As to 1., I wonder if you (Joel) have the same problem with the airplane/TV sanitized versions of movies — you know, where they show “Trading Places” on regular TV and every third word doesn’t match what Eddie Murphy’s lips are doing? These are also called the “official” sanitized versions. I’m thinking you don’t mind them (certainly there was no uproar of this magnitude about airplane/TV versions over the past 20 years), and maybe that’s because EVERYONE KNOWS that the airplane version of Trading Places is not the “real” movie, it’s the movie with words like “goshdarn” and “mudderfudder” subbed in for most of the original dialogue. Or are those versions equally objectionable?
Posted by: Ariela | Apr 20, 2005 3:12:58 PM
IS this an enterprising editor in the company where the book currently lives? If it is someone who goes out and buys a copy to edit and then republish on their own, there is something wrong with that.
As I have noted above, it is okay for parents to shield their children or their own ears from certain ideas and concepts. If you are not going to tell the whole story, don’t tell the story. If you are making a derivative work (say, The Wind Done Gone, we are in a different boat.
Artistically, the director or writer may have already had to compromise with the production company. The director may have a different version of the movie he or she would have released. The director is given the power to tell that story in the release of Director’s Cuts. When someone outside of that collaberative process decides that what the director and the production company created is inferior and resells the director’s artistic work as a new product, it is wrong. How? Why? If they want to make a satire or a parody or a derivative work, they can do that. Instead, they commercialize unauthorized alterations of the work. If a law review article is written and someone buys a copy of the law review and changes the analytic conclusion and the support for that conclusion, what is the response? That the intellectual freedoms are being violated. That there is no justification for violating the extent research. Same thing here.
Posted by: Joel | Apr 20, 2005 2:49:39 PM
Try this hypo from the world of books: An enterprising editor puts out edited versions of books for children. For example, she puts out a 100-page edition of Gone With the Wind wherein she cuts out (among other things) the use of the n-word. Now maybe kids of a certain age should be able to read that sort of thing, to be aware of how people talked in the 1930s. Or maybe it would be better to tell your kids to read something else entirely. But still, is the editor actually doing something that is culturally or artistically wrong (whatever that means)? If so, how? What makes this different from any other series of books that are edited for length before being released as childrens’ books?
Posted by: Stuart Buck | Apr 20, 2005 2:41:10 PM
I was commenting more on the cultural implications rather than the legal implications with Ariela above. Legally, I am not certain it would qualify as a derivative work because of the lack of actual substantive change and the resale of the movie as the same movie.
Culturally, I think it is abhorrent for this to be done.
Legally, I have serious questions. I will admit to a greater working knowledge of the trademark provisions of the Lanham Act than to copyright law. But the idea of a derivative work always struck me as a reinterpretation, analysis, or skewing of the original work. If someone, for example, wrote a play where the lead player from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is given the same treatment as R&G are relative to Hamlet. I have no problem with an individual parent sanitizing the tapes when they buy them. I have a problem with a commercial endeavor to violate artistic integrity in a hands-on fashion. I belive that (c) is a viable situation. If there is going to be an edited version, it should not be by a third party outside the creative process.
Posted by: Joel | Apr 20, 2005 2:21:29 PM
As a matter of copyright law, I don’t think there’s a serious problem. At most, it’s a derivative work, but it might be better analyzed under the first sale doctrine since no copying has actually occurred.
As a matter of policy, I’m actually torn. (Moi?) It comes down, really, to a matter of honesty. Nobody has the right to have their message reach a particular listener, so it’s fair to ask how a director etc. is harmed by the editing any more than they’d be harmed by the alternative of not watching the movie. The answer to that is one of three things: a) They aren’t harmed, the parents’ expressive right to sanatize the tapes is just as strong as the directors expressive right to make them, hell with ’em; b) They’re harmed in sort of the same way that record compies are allegedly harmed by p2p: but for the availability of edited copies, some consumers, faced with the choice of titanic w/ boob or no titanic at all, would resign themselves to titanic w/ boob, so the artist really does suffer a net loss to their boob message — or, phrased in copyright terms, it impairs the market in viewers for the ideas (if not the market in dollars for the copies); c) They’re harmed because an innocent viewer believes they authorized or endorsed the sanitization (or a very innocent viewer doesn’t know about the sanitization at all) and connects it with the director — or, in trademark terms, it creates consumer confusion as to the source of the ideas.
If we don’t have an empirical basis for believing (b) or (c) I suppose we’re stuck with (a).
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Apr 20, 2005 12:53:43 PM
Disclosure note – Heavy background in theatre. The directors have every justification of being outraged. The entire point of the performance based art is to convey an idea and a story in the manner the director has chosen. It is the point. The director chooses what shots go into a movie, chooses what shots do not, how the shots will be used. The idea that people are buying copies of a movie, changing them, and then reselling them with the director’s name attached to it is appalling to someone with artistic backgorund! Whether it is fair use runs into problems here because they are not fundamentally altering the product. This is not a satire. This is not a review or a critique. This is a commercial enterprise that is relying on the goodwill of the movies already made to fuel it.
If you want to edit a movie, fine. You can buy your own copy and edit it. You can make software to edit the programs on a computer and distribute the software. If you want to relegate the television to some other part of the world, feel free. Do not take the artistic creation of another, mutilate it, and resell it as that same art. IMHO, this is beyond piracy. This is a violation of the artist’s creation at the most fundamental level. If you don’t liek Shakespeare, don’t go see it. If your cheeks burn red because a female breast is displayed, don’t watch Titantic. We have a ratings system.
You have the right to decide what you want to see. You have every choice to leave information or topics out of your life. But when a commercial enterprise begins violating the artistic integrity of movies and reselling those movies with the names of the director, actors, etc. still attached, it is a travesty.
As noted in the disclosure above, I have a background in the performing arts, and this sort of thing gets my blood boiling.
Posted by: Joel | Apr 20, 2005 12:37:26 PM
It seems to me that the fair use question is pretty straightforward: can I purchase a book, rip out the pages with the naughty bits, and resell it?
Posted by: amosanon1 | Apr 20, 2005 12:21:49 PM