
CleanFlicks - known
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CleanFlicks
======
pjc50
This is going to be controversial, but I would say this is the sort of thing
HN would be in favour of if it wasn't Mormons doing it:

\- consumer-side voluntary filtering as an alternative to demanding censorship

\- elastic approach to copyright

\- technological solution to social problem that's also a neat hack
("customized DVD player with software running concurrently with the DVD
playback to perform edits")

It does raise the question of how OK it is for people to construct a bubble
from which they remove entire classes of people (I'm betting that queerness is
very heavily edited, even in its least explicit forms).

~~~
golergka
> they remove entire classes of people

They remove themselves, voluntarily. I have a problem with censorship by
Twitter or Facebook because of their near-monopoly status on social media, but
I have no problem if some small company serves their small target audience
with censorhip that they choose themselves.

~~~
UserIsUnused
It's two different things indeed. Still, I do have a problem if it is the
religious sect censoring but I do not if it is a company offering that service
to the religious, and customers choose to use it, but not because a religious
leader said so. This is because religious leaders have too much power, easily
becomes cultish, I'm really afraid of religions that are just ways to make
money, I think it's unethical, and because religion can be like a drug, if you
add censorship into the mix, it's too dangerous. Basically, don't put
censorship into the hands of powerful entities, being it facebook, or
religious leaders.

As a disclaimer, I'm a Christian, with a catholic upbringing. I like
religions, I think it's an important part of human life, it's just that they
can be very dangerous as well.

~~~
beerandt
>don't put censorship into the hands of powerful entities, being it facebook,
or religious leaders.

Umm, one of the core principles of religion is providing a framework for
mortality. I'd say it's exactly within the scope of religion.

The practical implication of giving religious leaders "too much power" is a
cost of religious freedom.

------
markdown
There's a service you can pay for right now that does this on the fly for
Netflix and other streaming services.

Edit 1: I just found this one:
[https://www.vidangel.com/](https://www.vidangel.com/) but that's not the one
I saw originally. Must be quite a popular service if there are competing
providers.

Edit 2: It looks like vidangel got into trouble:
[https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/vidangel-jury-verdict-
dama...](https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/vidangel-jury-verdict-
damages-1203245947/)

Edit 3: Here's another service:
[https://clearplay.com/](https://clearplay.com/)

~~~
bigwavedave
+1 for clearplay. My folks use it religiously (I don't mean it's literally
because of religion, it's just an expression. But if I'm being honest,
religion probably has to do with it) and I'm very grateful they do. My
youngest siblings are adopted and have special needs, so while they're getting
older and are really quite smart, they're extremely vulnerable to the
influence of any media they consume, especially when they can't quite
understand fiction vs nonfiction. Putting on clearplay 100% of the time when
they watch a movie helps keep a lot of nasty surprises from doing so much
damage.

~~~
riffraff
I could see myself using this often if it was a built-in feature in
netflix/primevideo.

Often I am trying to watch something of low importance on TV while kids are
running in and out of the room and I'd rather not accidentally expose them to
a pointlessly prolonged sex scene, which seem to be in every single tv show
these days for no apparent plot reason.

------
Tade0
I've spent the first years of my life in Kuwait and that's how stuff you would
see on TV was edited there.

It was actually pretty well done(at least from the perspective of a five year
old).

Oddly, Baywatch went mostly uncensored.

------
FineTralfazz
Growing up as a Mormon kid and seeing these DVDs around, I was always curious
why it was legal, and none of the adults I asked had an answer, or even seemed
to understand why it wouldn't be. It's funny to discover this article >10
years later and learn that the answer was "it's not."

------
jhanschoo
Hi, almost all the comments are missing the reason why copyright was
infringed. To be fair, the Wikipedia article does not make that clear, and the
rhetoric on both sides of the lawsuit tries to frame it as an issue of editing
content and preserving the artist's wishes, which is not.

From a source article for the Wikipedia article
([https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=4026743&itype=NGPS...](https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=4026743&itype=NGPSID))

> CleanFlicks is a distributor that produces copies of Hollywood blockbusters
> on DVD by burning a scrubbed version onto a blank disc.

They made copies of substantial portions of film without changing their
essential creative expression. Today we'd recognize it as clear-cut copyright
infringement.

On the other hand, as much as creatives and their publishers dislike it, the
law is friendly toward those trying to subvert a work's creative expression;
e.g. parody, remixes, etc. are protected by fair use.

If, for example, CleanFlicks restricted its operations to selectively
scrubbing bought VHS tapes (without making copies), there wouldn't be a case.

~~~
beatgammit
What exactly is the difference between modifying copies produced by the
manufacturer and creating new copies with unwanted content removed, provided
the copyright holder still gets paid for each sale? Does it _really_ matter
that they automated the process?

------
BjoernKW
When I saw the title I hoped this to be about a particular kerning issue ...

This is hypocritical at best.

If you don't want sexual content or profanity in your media then either create
your own content or pay for the creation of such content.

Manipulating original content to suit your particular moral convictions not
only truncates that content but also doesn't help with incentivising the
production of original content you might rather want to see.

~~~
jasonkester
I see this reaction every time one of these services is discussed here. People
with angry, even violent opposition to people fast-forwarding through parts of
movies.

It's fascinating. I can't imagine an issue that could affect the parent's life
less than this. And yet he and a couple other folks downstream are properly
losing their soup over it.

As to the point in question, I tend to disagree that Disney will be
disincentivised from making more Star Wars movies because of that time
somebody skipped the "Luke's Parents On Fire" scene when showing Episode 4 to
their kids the first time.

~~~
BjoernKW
Fast-forwarding parts of movies for your own private use is entirely different
from selling an unlicensed edited version of original content, which is
precisely what CleanFlicks did.

Unless that content is licensed under a free licence that specifically permits
you to remix content (e.g. some Creative Commons variants) selling an
unauthorised edited version is unethical and probably illegal as well.

By arbitrarily removing parts of original content and publishing the changed
versions CleanFlicks were altering it in ways the content creators didn't
intend and it's perfectly understandably that those content creators don't
want to be associated with these versions.

------
dakom
Sounds like a legitimate idea executed the wrong way. If there is a genuine
need in the market for such a service, surely the studios would cooperate
(ideally with the director) in order to produce a clean cut?

Seems to me very similar to overdubbing with other languages. Definitely kills
all the hard crafted work of sound design and nuance in actor's performance,
something the director _should_ be the authority on - but deals are worked out
and films are distributed with language tracks because there's huge global
markets and it's ultimately a business decision.

~~~
beatgammit
Check out the VidAngel case where they tried to work with the studios to get a
licensing agreement but were instead litigated against. They _wanted_ to work
with the studios, but they wouldn't, so they found a way that they thought was
technically legal.

There absolutely _is_ a sizable market for this type of content, but content
producers don't want to budge. I think there are a lot of great films that
have content I don't want my children watching, and my choices are either to
find an edited copy or not consume the content. The problem is that the
copyright holder's position is that I'm free to consume _other_ content,
whereas my position is that I should be able to modify whatever content I
purchase or pay to have access to.

Personally, I don't think copyright owners should have any standing to force
consumers to consume content in the way the producer intended, they should
only be able to offer the content or not. As long as there copyright owner is
compensated for each sale, I see no problem with adding value, such as by
editing the content or adding to it, provided the modifications are
enumerated.

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reallydontask
Isn't this similar to what airlines used to do (maybe still do) when movies
played on shared screens?

If it's opt-in I don't see a massive problem with such a service per se.
Tricky to gauge how to move your kids to regular stuff though

~~~
scarface74
The airlines don’t do it. The company that owns the copyright creates edited
versions for different venues.

~~~
reallydontask
thanks for that, I had assumed that it was the airlines but it makes sense
that it's the copyright owners that do it.

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DeepYogurt
I hate this bullshit

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sneak
I would like to hear about the doublethink employed by the good mormon workers
who compile these edit/skip timecode lists.

~~~
dakom
I'd imagine it's along the same lines as good police officers who sift through
all the photographs, video, and audio recordings that conflict with their
moral compass.

