Family Movie Act

[VCDHunter]

Valenti attacks 'clean DVD' bill

Valenti was among those who testified on Thursday in Washington
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), has spoken out against a law legalising products that "clean up" DVDs.
The Family Movie Act would exempt from legal liability anyone using software to make "family friendly" versions.

Mr Valenti said that the wishes of the director should be taken into account.

The legislation would end an ongoing dispute between the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and companies offering DVD filtering technology.

"Our objection is simply to Congress providing legal cover to companies that want to make a profit by offering an edited, abridged version, without regard for the wishes of the director who created the movie or the studio that owns the copyright," said Mr Valenti.

He was testifying in Washington on Thursday at a hearing scheduled by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property.

Disclaimer

Under the new law, anyone who used filtering software to remove indecent, violent or pornographic content in movies would be free from prosecution, provided the final product carried a clear disclaimer.

Mr Valenti said moviemakers did not object to edited versions of their films like the ones prepared for airline broadcast by the studios themselves.


The movie industry is strongly opposed to DVD-filtering technology
However, according to the Hollywood Reporter, he said they strongly opposed commercial enterprises that destroy the dramatic narrative and artistic integrity of their work.

The new legislation, introduced on Wednesday, is in part an attempt to settle the DGA's legal action, originally filed in September 2002.

Lamar Smith, the Republican congressman chairing the House Judiciary Subcommittee, said he would not call for a vote on the bill if Hollywood comes to an agreeable settlement with the technology companies offering movie-filtering products.

The DGA, however, remain firmly opposed to any attempt made to legitimise such products.

"As the creators of films, directors oppose giving someone the legal ability to alter... the content of a film that a director has made, often after many years of work," it said in a statement.

"The proposed exception to copyright protection could have far-reaching implications that cannot fully be comprehended today."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3818165.stm

Is he just opposing things now for the sake of it ? Doofus.

[tekkieman]

No, he's just opposed to missing out on his cut when they sell the edited version themselves!

[Timmychuck]

If they make edited version for airlines,why don't they sell them?
They can make more $ that way.

[Gazorgan]

Since when did a movie studio listen to a director? Get real.

If the MPAA came up with this, it would be heralded, but since it's a third party, it's evil.

And lastly, it's totally 100% meaningless and worthless. Who needs software when you can do it without? What's wrong with the current multi-angle specs? Absoutley-effing nothing. The technology has ALWAYS existed to do this with a DVD, just no incentive.

[Greg12]

I dont want anything censored and when I have kids, I plan to let them hear it.


Family movie crap reminds me of Pastor Richards from GTA Vice City.

[ViRaL1]

Who needs to edit when there's ClearPlay?

http://www.clearplay.com./

I'd much rather see my DVDs violated in hardware and stripped of their offensive content.

[Nilfennasion]

Not to be contrary, but Valenti is right in this case. A world where everything (and if things like this were made legal, you can count on it being applied to just that - EVERYTHING) is sanitised for fear of how five year olds might react would be a very dead, stagnant, lifeless place. It would mean the end of films like RoboCop, Flesh + Blood, or indeed anything that isn't made by the Walt Disney corporation. We're already in an environment where targeting a film solely at adults is basically the commercial kiss of death in spite of the fact that it has and always will be the adults who do the paying.

In all honesty, if someone told me they were going to clean up my copies of films like Kill Bill so that I could watch them with one of my cousins' five year old children, I'd kick that person in the nuts. Since this is the closest I will ever get to doing that, I fully support the MPAA in suing the hell out of them.

[Alan69]

We're already in an environment where targeting a film solely at adults is basically the commercial kiss of death in spite of the fact that it has and always will be the adults who do the paying.

In all honesty, if someone told me they were going to clean up my copies of films like Kill Bill so that I could watch them with one of my cousins' five year old children, I'd kick that person in the nuts. Since this is the closest I will ever get to doing that, I fully support the MPAA in suing the hell out of them.

Why even type that in? They aren't remotely proposing to do what you railed on about, so your opinion on your fictional idea is pretty irrelevant. And it's equally irrelevant where a kid's money comes from if they're making the purchase decision, a sale is a sale. And if someone did want a clean copy of Kill Bill for their use, there certainly shouldn't be a law against it.




As much as they claim 'art', it's really almost always a commercial product aimed at making money. If they sell it as a product, anyone who wants to should be able to use their purchased product as they wish, including fliter it. Even filter it and resell that copy to others who would like a filtered version should be allowed, this 'I want to take your money for my product, but it's still mine' crap is complete BS. If they want it to be art, don't try and sell it like a cheap piece of meat.



An easy way to fix it: Art status vs Commercial status. Commercial films work just as now, except people own their product since it's intended for commercial use. Art status films can't be messed with, just as the MPAA wants. But since it's "ART" not business, 50 percent of the profits above cost from the movie have to be donated to a government fund for the poor etc to get that extra protection. That will seperate the 'artists' from the street whores in a hurry, and I don't think there will be many artists.. It'd put the lie to the MPAA claimes of interest in art instantly, they are strictly dollar whores just as any other business interest.

Alan

[qlizard]

No one is saying that such films will be unavailable. The paying public will decide that. These firms are giving an option to people who would otherwise not see the film. The uncensored version will still be available to those who chose. Why hasn't the film industry catered to the customers who don't care to hear or see graphic content in films where it isn't needed? They could include the option for muting or skipping content. And I'm not talking about war or prison films where such content is necessary for realism. I'm talking about the PG-13 comedy with one "F" word thrown in for "laughs". Is the film industry (and Valenti) trying to manipulate the viewing public to be more tolerant of graphic material? They must think that such a course makes them more money long-term than giving an option to this very real segment that doesn't care to see it.

These firms are giving us options. Not censorship for you, if you don't choose it.
What could be wrong with that?

[Nilfennasion]

A quote from the Just Say No To Microsoft Site:

Major video rental chains like Blockbuster are not only using their mass-marketing clout to squeeze smaller, independently-owned places out of business, they're effectively suppressing the content and availability of movies in the process. While your local chain bookstore will probably special-order just about any available book for you, the same isn't true of video rental chains: what they stock is what you get to choose from. Blockbuster in particular refuses to carry any films they deem "controversial". If a vocal faction - however small or provincial - protests against a title, they'll yank it... nationwide. Even worse, the movies they do carry are frequently edited to their standards, without any indication to the customer that they're not getting the original: a form of quiet unaccountable censorship. Which wouldn't be a problem if there were adequate alternatives in most communities, where someone with an interest in "unapproved" movies could pick them up in their unexpurgated version, but that's getting harder and harder outside the largest cities. Even if you don't want to rent disturbing or "mature" movies yourself, if you care about the right of people to choose what they want to watch, then support the video rental places that support the right to rent complete and controversial videos.

As far as I am concerned, this is no different to studios telling news outlets that the market is turning towards Pan And Scan simply because ignoramuses are coming into the market and, not knowing any better, they buy it. As a result, distributors like 21st Century Pictures (or 19th Century Pictures as one editor I worked with calls them) were labouring under a belief that their consumers want Pan And Scan.

If you apply this marketing illogic to censorship, the ramifications get worse. People who go to the cinemas or visit the IMDB regularly will know that a director in his right mind will never consent to having his work censored if it makes his film make less sense (witness how Paul Verhoeven reacted to the way the MPAA treated RoboCop by inserting much more violence than he intended to keep in for Total Recall). But what of those whose cinema-viewing extends to renting a disc every third week? And where do these third-party censors draw the line, too? Unlike these NoCinemaGoerIsAnAdult types, the MPAA has guidelines that they have revised and researched for decades. Not that they aren't outdated and in need of serious revision, but they are much better than "one person in a million might be offended, let's remove it".

Anyone who wants to think that systems like this are voluntary and good for the consumer ought to do some research in how companies edge out the competition when a large enough majority buys their service. Blockbuster is almost a monopoly here, too, but the distributors at least don't give them things that are already digitally altered.

I don't choose things like this, but you can rest assurred, just like in America, that groups are exploring every avenue to circumvent the choice I do make.

[freestyler]

What's wrong with the current multi-angle specs? Absoutley-effing nothing. The technology has ALWAYS existed to do this with a DVD, just no incentive.

it's more of a seamless-branching issue, not multi-angle

[Nilfennasion]

Both technologies cut the maximum bitrate one can allocate to the transfer quite dramatically. If you have two pieces of footage branched into the same time code, you've basically slashed your maximum bitrate down to 5 mb/s. In order to compensate for this, the footage has to be very carefully encoded and compressed. The total amount of time most extra footage takes up on a properly branched disc is mere seconds.

I once heard a couple of years ago that there is only one authoring facility in the world that can do true seamless branching. Is this still the case?

[adam]

AFAIK, seamless branching doesn't lower the max allowable bitrate at all. You never branch two assets into the same timecode, each asset is stored separately from all others they are just organized in multiple stories. You can jump from one story to the next which will affect the order that the clips play. But each clip itself is a separate entity and altogether you are bound by the same limits, 10.08Mbits. My seamless branching T2 version has very high bitrate peaks, for example. (and yes I did analyze each story.) About the same as with any other DVD.

You can easily do the exact same thing in just about any DVD authoring package, it just won't play seamlessly unless the software supports true story branching. I only know of one package that does this (Apple makes it I think) but I'm sure there are more out there.

You could easily make DVD with optional censored parts using just multiangles, and there are in fact some DVDs on the market like this. Its no different then playing the angle with the French credits as opposed to the English credits.

But if you use multiangles then it does cut your max bitrate but not THAT much. For 2 to 5 angles its 7800kbits, for 5-8 angles its 7300kbits and for 9 angles its 6800kbits. But you are only limited to these bitrates during the multiangle feature, ie: 30 seconds of nudity, so its not that big a deal.

[adam]

As far as the actual discussion is concerned, here's my take on it. A 3rd party should have absolutely no right to censor a movie and resell it. Even if they sell them the original as well. The copyright holder did not grant permission for that to be done. If the consumer wants to buy a censored version and one was not released by the copyright holder, tough.

BUT I see absolutely nothing wrong with devices that allow you to censor the actual original movie yourself. There are players that let you preset skip points to jump over a scene, or to set timeframes where the audio will cut out. What's wrong with that? Its no different then hitting FF or covering little Johnny's eyes during the sex scenes. This lets the user have organized control over how they watch the movie, and that is something that the copyright does, or at least should, allow them to do.

If the Family Movie Act made the distinction between these two things I wouldn't have a problem with it.

[Nilfennasion]

I've seen discs before where video from different files is pasted into the same timecode. It isn't a pretty sight. The Fox version of RoboCop, for example, is an insulting joke because it pauses a minute or three in advance of where the footage from Verhoeven's preferred cut of the film is inserted. The X-Men 1.5 disc is only marginally better because the director and studio never intended to reinstate the footage anyway.

True seamless branching is like a horizontal flow chart. Every so often, the video has a couple of branches placed in it that it can follow, depending on its settings. The same technology was tried in order to impose censorship ratings, but they found that the codes to enforce it could be cracked by anyone over the age of four, and the demands it placed upon the video bitrate were unsustainable. Or at least that is the official explanation.

If the consumer wants to buy a censored version and one was not released by the copyright holder, tough.

That's the exact sentiment I have been trying to convey. They tried selling two versions of the same film once here back in the 1990s. Very few people, I recall, even bothered with the M-rated cut that was on offer. After some of the versions that have been televised in this country, who can blame them? I had a hell of a time making any sense of one such version, which often counts to the detriment of the makers rather than the broadcaster in the cases of people who know no better.

In this country, therefore, distributors will say "these censored versions do not sell", and they'd be absolutely correct. That they get the light of day in America is something I find positively disturbing.

[junkmalle]

The products that "clean up DVDs" don't do anything to the DVDs. Valenti is talking about players that use a database to skip over content deemed "unacceptable" on the DVDs that are already sold. The company providing the database (Clearplay) charges a fee for the service. If you don't like the service don't buy it and don't buy a player that supports it. It's a simple as that.

http://www.clearplay.com/

I will never buy one of these players but I don't care if anyone else does.

[Nilfennasion]

Ah yes, but what happens when the likes of Pat Robertson decide they want to mandate a "service" like this? Given Microsoft's track-record, "support" is becoming synonymous with "will force sooner or later".

[lordsmurf]

I think consumers should have more rights. Valenti can go f--- himself as usual.

I want the uncut versions. But I can also respect my parents or my sister's family wanting the cut versions (they don't have the same tolerance as I do, but they also miss out on good movies because of it).

If you edited Kill Bill, the credits would be longer than the movie itself. Some things can obviously never be cleaned up.

[adam]

If you edited Kill Bill, the credits would be longer than the movie itself. Some things can obviously never be cleaned up.

That reminds me of the R1 Cabin Fever DVD. Its got a link to the family safe version, or something like that. It starts with an introduction from the director and he says they cut out all of the nudity and violence. Then all it does is play the first 45 seconds with a horribly sappy love song played over top and then it cuts to the end credits.

Stupid movie but they've got lots of silly things like that on the DVD so its worth a look.

[junkmalle]

I think consumers should have more rights. Valenti can go f--- himself as usual.

I agree with the part about what Valenti can do! But the bill gives you more rights. Well, techinically it gives Clearplay more rights. It allows them to produce cut lists that you can choose to use or not.

Of course, Nilfennasion could be right, and this is just the first step in making it mandatory...

[Nilfennasion]

Freddy Got Fingered also contains the option of an MPAA-approved PG version, which is actually funnier and more entertaining than the real thing. But Tom Green is a moron, and I fully support his right to make an ass of himself in public. I still wait with bated breath for the day he confronts the wrong person for one of his television shows, and they thump him into next week.

Don't get me wrong, I support people in their right to request that studios make censored versions of films. But the argument that the First Amendment does not give you the right to force people to hear your message works both ways. The studios can ignore such requests if they so choose. When they make a film like Total Recall, they are not counting on the family dollar to break even. And well they shouldn't - anyone care to remember what happened when they digitally cleaned most of the blood out of films like the 2002 Rollerball?

As I said earlier, when a big enough demographic supposedly approves of something, the nanny state tends to interpret this as universal approval. Never mind the qualifying factors, and all. That quote I provided from the Just Say No To Windows site sums it all up for me: gigantic chains are circumventing the wishes of the directors and the rights of the people by creating the illusion in the minds of the people that theirs is the only version in existence. For American censorship to fall behind Australian censorship is one thing, but for it to be falling behind England's?

[flaninacupboard]

i said before on this, simply removing violent/sexual scenes doesn't make it suitable for kids. Take The Crow. remove violence and sex. now you have a film about a man in make up meeting people in alleyways and making them disappear. his best friend is a ten year old girl. something you want your kids to watch? no. of course not. it encourages parents to simply be lazy with their kids, and interact with them even less.

I can't really express how i feel about the same company offering edited books.........

[Nilfennasion]

They're already lazy with their children, at least as far as I have seen. In one of those ironies, Australia has the best and most progressive rating system in the world (not bad for a country with possibly the smallest audience), but it isn't because of enlightened censors. It's because the parents of Australia are so lazy that they expect the government to babysit them and their children when they go to theatres, while adults who are single or have older children want to have something to watch without their brain going to sleep.

The real problem is that the studios spend so much on making these films that they can't afford to not market it to everyone. The lowest common denominator, in other words. What these "cleaning" services represent is an effort to bring that denominator down. If it wasn't so transparent it would be quite insidious.

simply removing violent/sexual scenes doesn't make it suitable for kids.

I echo that. Can you imagine Escape From New York cleaned up in such a manner?

[Greg12]

I agree about the majority, the same thing applies to wide screen and full screen, the majority seems to like wide screen, I will search the world for a full screen version before I buy widescreen.

[tgpo]

The MPAA figured that movies sucked enough with the cool parts left in. If they were to be reomved or toned down, then people would see them for the crap they are.

[Nilfennasion]

That is a rare case where the majority happens to be right. And "majority" has nothing to do with it.

It used to be that the majority thought Pan And Scan, or Foolscreen, was the right choice. The early adopters of DVD, on the other hand, knew better, and if the studios hadn't listened to them, DVD would have fallen flat on its face. At the time, the majority of home video consumers did not understand how cinema actually worked, and there is a sizeable number who still don't. The number who think that what they get on their TV screens is an exact copy of what they see in theatres, only smaller, even though it is a tiny fraction, is still amazing.

Thankfully, articles like http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/16x9Enhancement/16x9Enhancement.asp and http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/WidescreenPrimer/WidescreenPrimer1.html have cleared this up somewhat. Now can we get back to the topic at hand?

[fritzi93]

I fail to understand the objections to hardware/software filtering. None of my damn business what other people want to watch, and since they aren't mandating an "approved version", how does that harm you or me?

Look at it this way: It serves a niche market. What astounds me is the wailing sent up by the studios. They stand to increase their revenues thanks to Clearplay. They don't have to distribute alternate versions or expend any effort whatsoever, it's a gift. They want to put a stop to that? I think they live in an alternate universe. Absolute control seems to dominate their thinking, to the detriment of their own self-interest.

As for "artistic expression", what's stopping the studios? Read the spiel at the Clearplay link, it's hardware filtering using standard release DVDs.

[Nilfennasion]

It's an artistic thing. If I were to make a film based upon the novel I am working on now, I would be making it for a very specific audience. If others want to see what the film is about, fine. But I don't want to be burdened with a reputation derived from someone else's version of the film. Just like my written words, when I put something in there, it is for a reason.

Take a look at Peter Jackson's version of The Lord Of The Rings for example. If Jackson wrote The Cat In The Hat, it would probably be called Cat Hat. His idea of essentialism is utterly bonkers. And yet he is a far better editor of his own work than would be any of the people pushing this technology.

In a nutshell, a director/author has a right to say that he only wants people to buy a version of his story that he approves of. Usually, the cut they submit to their publisher or the MPAA is one that they have carefully pored over for months, paying attention to every little microscopic detail. They generally know what audience they are aiming for and why. The results of studios trying to circumvent that can be seen in the 2002 version of Rollerball (quite possibly one of the worst examples of trying to baby-fy a film I have ever seen in my life).

A studio recutting a film to make it appeal to (or "suitable for") an audience it was never intended for is bad enough. Take a look at http://www.capalert.com/ and tell me you'd want wankers like this deciding what you can and cannot watch, irrespective of what the MPAA decides. If technologies like this get the slightest sign of approval from the general public, it's only a matter of time.

[Thorn]

So now when you get caught with porn you can say "I was watching the clean version!". Millions of teenagers now have an excuse!

As dumb as this idea sounds, it's better than the jerks who were selling edited versions of DVDs. This isn't a whole lot different from TVs with the v-chip. If I could buy a TV without the V-chip I would, but at least it usually doesn't bother me. As long as this doesn't affect my ability to view the DVD in the original spendor...

[Nilfennasion]

This isn't a whole lot different from TVs with the v-chip. If I could buy a TV without the V-chip I would, but at least it usually doesn't bother me.

But that is my point exactly. Once things like this become standard, it is often difficult to find equipment that doesn't have it. If you don't believe me on that one, then you haven't tried to buy an RPC-1-compliant DVD-ROM drive lately. With the nanny mentality that has taken over our countries, it really is just a matter of marketing and time.