Hollywood balks at controlling your own inputs

[Major Variola (ret.)]

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.