New DVD player cuts out the smut By David Usborne in New York 11 April 2004 Like some kind of electronic air freshener, a new generation of DVD players is poised to clear the smut, violence and bad language out of living rooms all across America. Thomson Inc is preparing to ship the revolutionary machines to both Wal-Mart and Kmart in the United States in the next few weeks. The family-values brigade is already applauding, while the Hollywood community is pursuing a lawsuit to have them banned. The players, which will sell for $79 (#45), are equipped with technology by a Salt Lake City-based company called ClearPlay. They will be pre-programmed to spare viewers segments of films that feature offensive language, excessive violence or sexual content, by muting the sound or skipping ahead. Several leading Hollywood figures, however, including Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh, are backing a lawsuit, arguing that the technology will violate the rights of directors who expect their works to be viewed in their entirety, without censorship. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=510427 ........ Someone needs to explain to the Hollywood types that folks can do whatever they want with their media copies, short of reselling an edited version claimed as the original. You could with tape, a random access device is no different. The copy rights of the directors do not include prescriptions for viewers.