andrel's Journal: Cleanflicks

This evening All Things Considered broadcast a story about Cleanflicks, a Utah company in the movie-rental business. Cleanflicks bowdlerize movies, removing stuff like the seven words made famous by George Carlin and shots of T&A, then rent/sell them to uptight folks who find such things offensive. Cleanflicks is suing a bunch of famous directors in a preemptive strike; supposedly the directors were planning a copyright/trademark infringement lawsuit against Cleanflicks. [NPR story] [Cleanflicks homepage]

The movie directors, and the big-media companies they sleep with, argue that what Cleanflicks is doing is illegal because:

1. It violates the director's artistic vision, and Cleanflicks has no right to tamper with their art.
2. It infringes on the director's trademark to his name.
3. It is not fair use, and therefore violates big-media's copyright.

My initial reaction was bowlderizing stinks, and in this case is probably illegal. But after thinking about it a bit I've decided this is fair use, probably is legal (but I'm not a lawyer, so what do I know?), and damn-well ought to be legal. (I still think bowlderizing stinks.) Before I address big-media's three arguments let's consider a few hypothetical scenarios:

• First, suppose it were a book not a movie. It's certainly legal for Cleanflicks to buy the book, cut out some offensive pages and black out the good bits, then pass the bowlderized edition on to their customers.
• What about a film? On real film, not a video tape or DVD. Just like with the book, Cleanflicks should be allowed to physically cut scenes or silence out segments, then provide the film to their customers. They should even be allowed to put big black bars over Pam Anderson's silicon.
• Okay, now let's imagine a programmable DVD player. The program consists of instructions on where to start/stop playing and where to mute the sound. (Experienced coders might argue what I'm describing here is really a script, not a program, but that'd confuse non-technical folks who know what a movie script is, so I'll call it a program. It'd be very easy to modify existing DVD players to provide this capability. If it weren't for the DeCSS fiasco I'd do it myself just to allow non-broadband users to watch fan-cuts of Phantom Menace. (My DVD player would be called DoktorMurkes.) [DeCSS] [Phantom Edit]) When Cleanflicks rent the DVD they also provide their complimentary bowlder-program. I think this is completely legal: since in this scenario the DVD isn't copied, how can the copyright be infringed? The program itself isn't a derivative work hence not covered by big-media's copyright. However the performance produced by combining the program with the DVD is a derivative work. (I wonder if a smart copyright lawyer would agree with me on this.)

Note that in all of these scenarios big-media gets the same royalty payments they'd get without the bowlderizing. In fact, they're getting more, since some folks wouldn't pay for the non-bowlderized version.

So now to the three objections. As far as "it should be illegal because it tampers with the director's artistic vision" is concerned, the only possible response is a loud Bronx cheer. Society does not tolerate the embarrassment of a state-sponsored monopoly to protect artistic vision. (Besides, the director almost always cedes the final cut to the executive producer, since even directors themselves don't value their artistic vision very highly.)

The trademark objection is more interesting. But irrelevant. Cleanflicks customers know full-well the movies have been bowlderized and they're not seeing the original cut. So the director's good-name isn't being damaged.

Finally, I believe Cleanflicks is engaged in fair-use. What they're doing is morally equivalent to the fair-use scenarios mentioned above; it should be legal. (N.B. I believe that Cleanflicks purchases enough new videos to cover the number of bowlderized videos they sell, so big-media is getting all the same royalty payments. If they weren't it'd be a cut-and-dried case of infringement.)

What about Blockbluster?

[LilituC]

They only carry censored versions of certain movies with little tip-off other than they're at Blockbuster and sometimes the covers are a little different. That and the profanity and my favorite scenes are missing. They just don't go around advertising it.

Re:What about Blockbluster?

[andrel]

Does Blockbuster do the bowdlerizing themselves, or do they pick up the studio's TV/airplane cuts? On one of my recent East Coast trips I read a piece in the in-flight rag basically saying "sorry, we can't sell you the in-flight cut of the movies, please stop asking". I'm astonished how many people want to watch modified movies.

Re:What about Blockbluster?

[LilituC]

I tried to find a good reference, but "blockbuster" is just too common a word. As far as I can tell, they ask the studios to do it or they won't carry the film, and the studios do it because the power of the dark side is so great (it helps that they squish local chains out of business).

Re:What about Blockbluster?

[andrel]

If it is the studio doing the cut then there's no copyright problems, nor "artistic vision" issues. The studio owns the copyright and the vision. The director's complaint about Cleanflicks is that they make their own cuts instead of having the studio do it. Remember, I'm talking about what is or should be legal, not what is right nor where I plan to rent my videos. I won't rent from Cleanflicks, but what they do should be legal. (I wouldn't invest in Cleanflicks either; Moviemask clearly has a better business plan.)