Watch it How You Like
President Bush signed legislation yesterday that gives protections to companies who sell devices loaded up with filters that can be used to mask or cut out offensive material in DVDs. Some people in Hollywood is crying foul, of course, but their case is weak. These services are basically the equivalent of hiring someone to go to the Louvre with you and hold up a ping pong paddle in front of all the artistically exposed nipples. If someone wants to view your art, your TV show, your movie through rose-colored glasses, that’s their prerogative. Heck, if they want to watch your movies with Spanish dubs, French subtitles, while drunk and slathered in crunchy peanut butter and while listening to Jimi Hendrix in their SUV, parked in front of a church… again… their call.
When the DVD format was being proposed, this sort of content filtering was actually one of its selling points. Proponents tried to woo people by saying that with DVD, they’d be able to take an R-rated movie and press a button to tone it down to a PG-13 level. This is something that technically could have been done, but wasn’t. Now, someone else has stepped up to the plate.
It should be noted that these filters do not contain edited copies of the movies. There were some services selling pre-edited versions of videos, and that is copyright infringement. The filters are basically an electronic equivalent of “mute the audio for half a second at 34:25 into the movie” or “cut out the first 2 minutes of chapter 24 on this DVD.”
Of course, no bill is complete without draconian laws slipped in. The bill also makes distributing a song or movie before its commercial release a crime worthy of twice as much time in jail as you would get for manslaughter. Responsibility for this goes to Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah who received $183,428 from the music/TV/movie industries in political donations during his last 4-year term.
