ClearPlay - the art of Censorship

[Brock Landers]

COurtesy of DAVISDVD.CO,:


Retail giant Wal-Mart, along with K-Mart, will soon begin selling a new DVD player that will automatically skip over sexual content, violent scenes and offensive language. The $79 RCA deck, scheduled to be on store shelves in the next two months, will utilize a proprietary filtering program from ClearPlay Inc. The ClearPlay software uses a set of programmed commands tell the DVD player when to mute dialog or skip segments that show fourteen levels of violence, sex, nudity and profanity (the viewer has the option of activating the filters). According to the company, a team of ClearPlay employees will screen films and then program the appropriate changes and scene deletions to make the titles "family friendly." And if excessive filtering might ruin a film, ClearPlay won't offer it (sorry Junior, no Scarface for you). An up-to-date list of films that have been "cleaned up" is available at ClearPlay's website.

You already may be thinking to yourself that this smacks of censorship - Hollywood has as well. ClearPlay is currently battling a lawsuit filed by the movie studios, the MPAA, the Directors Guild of America and various filmmakers, including Steven Spielberg, Steven Soderbergh and John Landis. The suit claims that filtering technology such as ClearPlay's produces unauthorized and illegal version of their artistic work. "In the guise of making films 'family-friendly,' ClearPlay seeks to make whatever 'edits' they see fit to any material they don't like," the group said in a prepared statement. "By not seeking the consent of the director, whose name on the movie reflects the fact that the film comprises his or her work, or of the studio as copyright holder, they can and do change the very meaning and intent of films." Despite the lawsuit, Thomson Electronics decided to go ahead with production of the DVD player because of the intense interest from Wal-Mart stores.

[Juxton]

I don't really get the uproar. It's not like they're forcing anyone to get the product. I mean, there aren't lawsuits against tv stations for editing movies. Besides, it doesn't seem to me that they are actually editing the movie itself, just the way you watch it. I mean, when you take it out of the dvd player, the disc isn't changed so it will never have that material again, right?

Now, if they were forcing this on consumers by making all dvd players do this, then I could see someone shouting censorship. The fact is, though, you and you alone have the choice of purchasing it or not.

It's an idiotic product, though. But I'll bet a lot of people will like it.

[Dracula]

Think about it this way, someone could sell a "clean" version of a novel and start selling it all over the internet and copyright would not cover it. it works the same for movies.

Personaly I think a clean version of Pulp fiction would be hilarious, although the player dosn't offer it.

[adt100]

What a ridiculous idea, and how on earth it actually works i) effectively) ii) w/o messing up the film itself I don't know.

We have a ratings system, and explaations attached to these on films as to why they received that rating. If people (ie parents) are too idiotic to actually take note of these and buy/rent an appropriate DVD for their family then that's their problem.

[Movie mogul]

Its stupid...

[spiderman_2k]

Rob In Phoenix will love this thing.

[Dracula]

another move bringing wal-mart a major candidate for the worlds most evil corperation.

is there anything about movies they do right?

Answer: no

[Brock Landers]

Originally posted by adt100
We have a ratings system, and explaations attached to these on films as to why they received that rating. I people (ie parents) are too idiotic to actually take note of these and buy/rent an appropriate DVD for their family then that's their problem.

Exactly why the entire thing is stupid to begin with.....

[Juxton]

Am I misunderstanding this or something? They're not selling edited movies or anything, they're selling a product that plays the movies in their currently available form but with the stuff edited out. They're not selling new dvd versions of the movies. They couldn't legally do that without the cooperation of the dvd creators. I personally don't agree with it, but no one is forcing anyone to buy it or edit anything. This is just like people setting up parental controls. Are you guys reading something I'm not?

This is the way I understand it. If this is wrong, please correct me and provide where it is said differently:

You buy the DVD player and pop in your copy of, say Star Trek Generations that you already own. It's not a brand new edited version that just became available, it's the version that's been out there all along. You watch it, and when it gets to the point where Data says the S word as the Enterprise is crashing, the DVD player edits the word out.

Now, you take the DVD out of that player and put it into another, regular DVD player. The movie plays back just as it did before with the S word included. Nothing has changed. All that has happened is a parental control type thing stepped in at the right moment on the ClearPlay player.

Is this correct? I could see everyone getting pissed off and sueing each other if they were re-releasing the movies in new edited versions, or if they were making all DVD players like this and not giving you a choice, but as it is, you don't have to buy it if you don't want it. Just like you don't have to turn on parental controls on your current DVD player if you don't want to. If we had no choice, then I'd be shouting censorship.

Edit: Okay, this proves my point. It's from the post that started this thread:

"The ClearPlay software uses a set of programmed commands tell the DVD player when to mute dialog or skip segments that show fourteen levels of violence, sex, nudity and profanity (the viewer has the option of activating the filters)."

The key is that you have the option to activate the filters or not. If you did not have that option, and if this happened to all DVD players, then it could be considered censorship.

[cg124]

this is so stupid

[Dracula]

Anyway a friend of a freind bought this thing and we decided to take a look at the clean version of Fight Club it was rather boring here is the revised opening scene

[cg124]

I bet the movie is shorter also

[Dracula]

that was a joke, those are the ending credits

[cg124]

i thought so, i wasn't sure though because i havn't seen the movie

[Dracula]

Hold up, You've never seen Fight Club, DUDE get off the computer and run to blockbus... nay Best Buy and get it Imediatly

[todd philip]

I like the idea, i mean what if your kid wanted to watch the god father, or something like that, only a few seconds would be cut out!

[Inferno]

this is just an excuse for parents that are too lazy too pay attention to what their kids are watching. And anyway, kids would probably know better than their folks how to turn the feature on and off!

What ever happened to V-chips by the way? Weren't they meant to be installed in all new TVs?

[cg124]

Originally posted by Dracula
Hold up, You've never seen Fight Club, DUDE get off the computer and run to blockbus... nay Best Buy and get it Imediatly

yeah i really need to see this sometime

[spiderman_2k]

Yes you do.

[Dracula]

Originally posted by Inferno
this is just an excuse for parents that are too lazy too pay attention to what their kids are watching. And anyway, kids would probably know better than their folks how to turn the feature on and off!

What ever happened to V-chips by the way? Weren't they meant to be installed in all new TVs?

It would be a waste of time to watch the godfather edited, the violence is part of the story, the Baptisum scene would be ruined if they were cuting out the violence.

think of A Clockwork Orange withiout violence.

Honestly they needto stop this bull**** about kids over the age of mabey 8 not being able to handle stuff in movies. Saying the media is at fault for violent, obscene of sexual tenencyys in young peoples behavior is an exuse to ignore the real problems, Bad parents who drive there kids crazy.

[cg124]

i think if you want to see a movie, see it the way it was ment to be shown

[Neverending]

There's a great documentary at Netflix about Cleanflix and all those other censorship companies. Ya'll should check it out.

[Daniel]

Awwww ... spiderman_2k <3

[Neverending]

I miss him too.