'Clean' gets scrubbed

Ruling stops making of edited movie versions | Janie B. Cheaney

In 1998, Sunrise Family Video, a rental outlet based in Utah, offered a version of Titanic with the steamy love scenes edited out. Filmmakers protested, but consumers responded with enthusiasm, leading to the establishment of edited-format film outlets such as CleanFilms, CleanFlicks, and Play It Clean Video.

Most of these businesses purchased one authorized (unedited) DVD for each modified film it distributed to individuals and video outlets. That way, the film's distributor reached a market it otherwise wouldn't have, consumers got to enjoy popular movies without the cringe-making profanity, nudity, or excessive violence, and everybody won.

Nonetheless a consortium of 24 big Hollywood names (such as Spielberg, Altman, Time Warner, and Paramount) filed suit in 2003. In July Judge Richard P. Matsch in Denver handed down a decision stating that family-friendly editing constituted "irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies. There is a public interest in providing such protection despite the injury the infringers may sustain."