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