For years, studios have been editing movies — previously released feature films — for the airing on television and on airlines.
The idea of the editing movies is to remove or, edit out, scenes of the movies that certain viewers could find offensive, or are considered inappropriate for viewing by minors.
While the idea of families cleaning up movies that were previously released in studios in such a way to make them useful for family viewing has been around for a while, the idea really caught on around 1996 when a man edited a movie for his own personal use by blurring out the breasts of Kate Winslet while she posed for a painting by Leonardo DiCaprio from a scene in the hit movie Titanic.
When his friends viewed his edited film, the edited version of Titanic became a hit as well. Friends began asking him for copies of the cleaned up DVD, and he recognized a demand that the hollywood studios had been ignoring — those that wanted to share the stories or messages behind the movies but either weren’t allowed (like educators, religious leaders, dentists, doctors (in the waiting rooms or examination chair) and even prison wardens.
Ray Line decided to open a company, which he named Clean Flicks, to supply clean movies to the market he’d identified. They opened retail outlets in Utah, Idaho, and Nevada through informal franchising arrangements. Franchisees were allowed to sell and later rent edited movies, DVDs and sell clean films to customers in their geographic region.
In the very early going, Hollywood moved to protect what it felt was an infringement on their copyrights. In fact, the directors guild sued Clean Flicks as early as 1997 and waged a protracted legal war. The legal battle boiled down to the directors rights to control the way their material was sold, and Clean Flicks, and their customers’ collective rights to choice — and control over what they and their families were exposed to.
In the short run the edited movies for sale were sold alongside the original. The original movie would be stapled into the DVD jacket with the edited DVDs alongside it. Therefore, the studios were receiving their royalties (for the original DVD) and customers were able to enjoy clean family films in the privacy of their own homes.
However, in 2006, the pioneers lost their long legal battle with Hollywood. The corporation was forced to shut down and franchisee owners were obligated to liquidate their remaining stock of edited films and cease operations in by January 31, 2005.
For those who still wanted to buy edited movies, there are very few places who still make them available, and even fewer who will sell to the general public.
Several websites have been launched to try to fill this demand, however, for the most part, the director’s guild has been very efficient at putting these companies out of business.
Clean Flicks, Clean-flicks.com, familyeditedDVDs.com are just a few of the websites which have been forced out of business.
A few websites are trying to make a living by selling ebooks which explain how you can make your own edited movies.
In the interim a group of entrepreneurs got together and lobbied congress for a way to present edited movies to the group of consumers interested in controlling what comes on their TV screens and home theater systems. They got a bill passed into law which allows them to edit, on the fly, the content of a dvd, called clearplay. The problem is, the clearplay technology demands the purchase of a special piece of equipment, can be a lot choppier than an edited movie and it is necessary to pay clearplay monthly fees
Edited Movies
For years, studios have been editing movies — previously released feature films — for the airing on television and on airlines.
The idea of the editing movies is to remove or, edit out, scenes of the movies that certain viewers could find offensive, or are considered inappropriate for viewing by minors.
While the idea of families cleaning up movies that were previously released in studios in such a way to make them useful for family viewing has been around for a while, the idea really caught on around 1996 when a man edited a movie for his own personal use by blurring out the breasts of Kate Winslet while she posed for a painting by Leonardo DiCaprio from a scene in the hit movie Titanic.
When his friends viewed his edited film, the edited version of Titanic became a hit as well. Friends began asking him for copies of the cleaned up DVD, and he recognized a demand that the hollywood studios had been ignoring — those that wanted to share the stories or messages behind the movies but either weren’t allowed (like educators, religious leaders, dentists, doctors (in the waiting rooms or examination chair) and even prison wardens.
Ray Line decided to open a company, which he named Clean Flicks, to supply clean movies to the market he’d identified. They opened retail outlets in Utah, Idaho, and Nevada through informal franchising arrangements. Franchisees were allowed to sell and later rent edited movies, DVDs and sell clean films to customers in their geographic region.
In the very early going, Hollywood moved to protect what it felt was an infringement on their copyrights. In fact, the directors guild sued Clean Flicks as early as 1997 and waged a protracted legal war. The legal battle boiled down to the directors rights to control the way their material was sold, and Clean Flicks, and their customers’ collective rights to choice — and control over what they and their families were exposed to.
In the short run the edited movies for sale were sold alongside the original. The original movie would be stapled into the DVD jacket with the edited DVDs alongside it. Therefore, the studios were receiving their royalties (for the original DVD) and customers were able to enjoy clean family films in the privacy of their own homes.
However, in 2006, the pioneers lost their long legal battle with Hollywood. The corporation was forced to shut down and franchisee owners were obligated to liquidate their remaining stock of edited films and cease operations in by January 31, 2005.
For those who still wanted to buy edited movies, there are very few places who still make them available, and even fewer who will sell to the general public.
Several websites have been launched to try to fill this demand, however, for the most part, the director’s guild has been very efficient at putting these companies out of business.
Clean Flicks, Clean-flicks.com, familyeditedDVDs.com are just a few of the websites which have been forced out of business.
A few websites are trying to make a living by selling ebooks which explain how you can make your own edited movies.
In the interim a group of entrepreneurs got together and lobbied congress for a way to present edited movies to the group of consumers interested in controlling what comes on their TV screens and home theater systems. They got a bill passed into law which allows them to edit, on the fly, the content of a dvd, called clearplay. The problem is, the clearplay technology demands the purchase of a special piece of equipment, can be a lot choppier than an edited movie and it is necessary to pay clearplay monthly fees