law.com: Artistic Differences 5/12/04 by Brenda Sandburg, The Recorder
"Movie viewers with similar sensitivities will now find it easier to avoid profanity. Last month RCA launched a DVD player that includes a software program by ClearPlay Inc. that is preprogrammed to filter out nudity, sex, violence and harsh language from hundreds of movies ranging from 'Lost in Translation' to 'The Cat in the Hat.'

The technology has created a furor in Hollywood, with a group of 16 prominent directors, including Stephen Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Robert Redford and Stephen Soderbergh teaming up with seven motion picture studios to get it off the market. The directors claim the editing violates their trademarks by mutilating and diluting their movies, while the studios argue it infringes their copyrights by creating derivative works."

Funny, this was just mentioned in yesterday's hearings WRT the DMCA. The software mentioned in this article provides instructions to mute, fast forward, etc., so doesn't actually copy the disc or circumvent the security measures.

It did bother me, however, that Lessig was all for enabling the software that does circumvent the security to delete scenes, etc., but not for the DMCA reason, but for the general copyright reasons. It seems to me that this would change the artist's work and possibly misrepresent it. I believe abridged books have to be licensed by the copyright owner.  ¶ 9:05 AM| |cites (technorati) |