All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
The Directors Guild of America may be circling the wagons to take legal action against a handful of companies that offer consumers edited versions of popular films with potentially offensive content stripped out.
The potential suit's target is a handful of companies -- most of which are based in Utah -- that sell content-censoring software applications or altered videos and DVDs from which graphic language, sexual content and violence have been removed.
The companies in question include MovieMask software creators Trilogy Studios, as well as Family Shield Technologies, makers of the home technology system MovieShield. Their products let consumers censor movies on the fly through their PCs or televisions.
CleanFlicks and Video II, which operate differently, also have sparked the ire of directors and studios. These companies edit top-selling movies, then rent and resell "cleaned" versions online or in retail outlets.
As part of a trial program, Albertsons now sells in a number of Utah grocery stores "E-rated" edited versions of popular movie titles altered by Video II, according to spokesman Shane McEntarffer. The 2,300-store chain also owns Save-on Drugs and Osco Drug.
Whether major video rental chains will pick up on the trend remains to be seen.
"Blockbuster Video has no plans to carry these products," said Blockbuster spokesman Blake Lugash. "We don't edit or censor any of the films we carry in our store and we try to carry the theatrical versions."
The DGA objects to both methods of altering movies on the grounds that they amount to censorship, not to mention unauthorized alteration of copyrighted content. Directors' names remain on the censored films that CleanFlicks and Video II resell, the DGA maintains, but the work has been changed. That means the director's right to creative control has been violated, said DGA spokeswoman Carol Stogsdill.
Steven Soderbergh, Oscar-winning director of Traffic, agrees.
"We are appalled at the proliferation of companies that bypass the copyright holder and the filmmaker and arbitrarily alter the creative expression and hard work of the many artists involved in filmmaking," said the director, who also serves as first vice president of the DGA, in a statement. "It is unconscionable, and unethical, to take someone else's hard work, alter it and profit from it. Would anyone even attempt to defend ripping pages out of a book, leaving the author's name on it and then selling it?"
Representatives of both the DGA and the Motion Picture Association of America declined to comment specifically on any plans to take legal action.
"There's no formal timeline, but the DGA feels very strongly that as the days wear on, they need to see some action. If the feeling is that talks are not producing action in a fairly short period of time, we'll explore our options," Stogsdill said. "The studios are wondering what the most effective way is to enforce their copyrights in this situation, and the DGA is willing to do everything they can to protect movies."
The companies that provide smut-free versions of video and DVD movies claim they're only providing consumers with alternatives.
"Everyone knows what is going on when moaning and groaning is happening, but some people don't want to see it. That's the Movie Shield customer," said Richard Schmer, Family Shield Technologies spokesperson. "It's like when burlesque was big, and everyone wore pasties; our product is like software pasties. I wonder how much Michelangelo bitched when they put fig leaves on his statue -- we all know what's under the fig leaf."
"It has to do with family values," said CleanFlicks President John Dixon. "We don't think consumers should have to go through an experience where you see an adultery scene at the end of the movie, and everything turns out OK. If we're going to glorify drugs and prostitution in our media, there are consequences."
Trilogy Studios founder Breck Rice said that his company's MovieMask software does not alter movie content, but instead runs on a consumer's PC while the DVD plays, masking offensive material -- similar to an automated TV remote control.
"It's like taking a Picasso home," he said. "Other companies in our space are painting right on that masterpiece and permanently altering it. It's been changed and it's no longer a Picasso. We put a piece of cellophane over it; you can remove the cellophane, and it's still the same painting."
Stogsdill of the DGA conceded that the censoring software and E-rated versions of movies have been around for several years. But until now, the cost and effort required on the consumer's part slowed adoption. Changes in business models and new distribution deals with retailers and computer manufacturers have pushed the issue to center stage.
"Before CleanFlicks' rental model emerged a couple of weeks ago, consumers who wanted censored versions would have to go buy the video, then bring it in to their store, and they'd clean it for you for about $35," Stogsdill said. "We believe that if the consumer buys a video, they can do just about what they want to with it in the home. But when Albertsons is reselling altered films, that's different.
"Besides, once software enters the marketplace, someone will figure out how to alter that program for other purposes. If a program can slap a blouse on Kate Winslet in Titanic, someone could also alter the technology to take her clothes off. And how would that play in Utah?"
