Hollywood Studios Join Film-Sanitizing Lawsuit
Friday December 13 9:05 PM ET
Eight major Hollywood studios asked a federal court on Friday to bar distribution of films on video or DVD that are reedited by other companies to tone down sex and violence, claiming the sanitized versions violate copyright and trademark laws.
The late afternoon filing in U.S. District Court in Denver brings the studios directly into an ongoing legal battle over the content in hundreds of movies, ranging from “Dances with Wolves” and “Men in Black” to “Saving Private Ryan” and “Gladiator.”
The studios, including the Walt Disney Co. Sony Pictures Entertainment and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., reportedly had been reluctant to weigh in on the dispute for fear of appearing to take sides against advocates of family-oriented entertainment.
Ultimately, however, concerns about unauthorized alterations of their products in an age of digital piracy held sway.
“This lawsuit is about the fundamental right of the owners of copyrighted works and trademarks to protect the integrity of their work and their exclusive rights in their work and trademarks,” Jonathan Zavin, a lawyer representing the studios, told Reuters.
The studios were responding to litigation brought in August by CleanFlicks of Colorado and inventor Robert Huntsman against 16 leading movie directors seeking the right to purge their films of “objectionable” material such as nudity, violence and profanity.
Huntsman developed a device that allows viewers to choose or reject edited parts of a film while viewing the movie by using an enhanced remote control.
STUDIOS JOINING DIRECTORS
The Directors Guild of America brought a counterclaim in September against CleanFlicks, Huntsman and 13 other parties that offer reedited DVDs and videos or movie-editing software. The DGA also obtained a court ruling bringing the studios into the case as copyright holders.
Filing their response as defendants, the studios on Friday sought a court order to bar CleanFlicks and the other firms from any unauthorized editing of the studios’ films or from distributing those already altered.
CleanFlicks and other firms “have apparently determined that there is a profitable business in providing to certain audiences bowdlerized versions of other peoples’ movies,” the studios’ counterclaim said. “They simply take the studios’ movies and alter them without authorization by removing the material they think this audience will not want.”
In addition to Disney, MGM and Sony Corp.’s entertainment arm, the studios joining the suit are News Corp. Ltd.-owned 20th Century Fox, Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios of Vivendi Universal, AOL Time Warner Inc. unit Warner Bros. and privately held DreamWorks SKG.
CleanFlicks filed its lawsuit because it said it understood that movie directors who do not want their works reedited had planned to seek an injunction against such practices. The company said it had a First Amendment right of free speech to edit the movies.
The directors, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman, have argued that reediting their films without consent violates a federal law protecting artists from association with unauthorized versions of their work.
The studios’ suit claims infringement of copyright and trademark protections as well as unfair competition, false designation of origin and false representations in commerce. (Steve Gorman in Los Angeles contributed to this story)