CEA CEO Enraged Over Recent Congressional Ruling

Jul 12 2006, 4:00am CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Last week, a federal court ruled that CleanFlicks, which lets you rent edited versions of movies (like a family-friendly version of Netflix), violates U.S. copyright laws and "hurts" Hollywood directors and studios. The specific ruling wording is that such editing causes "irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies" and referred to the businesses as "illegitimate."

Yesterday, the CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, Gary Shapiro, publicly spoke out about the ruling. "Parents should have the right to benefit from technology to protect their children from graphic sex and violence. This is an example of the copyright laws going awry," he says.He then attacked Congress more directly, saying "Congress must say no to the content industry's voracious demand for yet more rights at the expense of ordinary Americans. It is time that Congress stopped considering any copyright legislation which does not recognize and protect the legitimate needs of consumers."

I've got to agree with Shapiro. If anything, services like CleanFlicks I'd imagine actually help the industry, with movie studios gaining more exposure from families who would otherwise avoid the films. Besides, if this was such an important federal judgement, then why do we still have highly edited versions of movies shown on TV?

CleanFlicks is wisely appealing the decision and their website is still in business.

Report Published by: Mark Raby

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Luigi Lugmayr
Luigi is the founding chief Editor of I4U News and brings over 15 years experience in the technology field to the ever evolving and exciting world of gadgets. He started I4U News back in 2000 and evolved it into vibrant technology magazine.
Luigi can be contacted directly at ml@i4u.com. Luigi posts regularly on LuigiMe.com about his experience running I4U.