Next, Legalization of Blindfolds
Hmm, how will the politically correct spin this one? The President has signed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act into law, a bill that legalizes a device that can be set to filter not-nice content from DVD's. It works on the hardware side. (See this earlier post.)
Naturally, Hollywood is horrified at its inability -- rare -- to get a piece of the action:
The legislation came about because Hollywood studios and directors had sued to stop the manufacture and distribution of such electronic devices for DVDp layers. The movies' creators had argued that changing the content — even when it is considered offensive — would violate their copyrights.
Yell "protect creators" and Hollywood usually gets its way. Here, however, it was up against the cultural (or "religious") right and "the family" (I'm one of them, by the way. I like the idea that I might be able to make these works kid-friendly, though I'm skeptical it will meet my family's own standards). Evidently this legislation managed to get painted the colors of apple pie, Mother and baseball and was beyond Tinseltown's clutches.
Kind of a conundrum for the reactionary left here. On the one hand, this is a blow against the Machine, a content-wants-to-be-free, I-bought-the-damned-DVD-I-didn't-license-it sort of thing. It's also ridiculously logical and, really, the height of chutzpah to oppose. Do I need Michael Eisner's permission to adjust the bass when I watch "Finding Nemo"?
On the other hand, ewww, who's behind it? The censors, the believers, the witch-hunters! (The hypocrites!) It will be interesting to see how this falls out.
4 Comments:
Hey fellows,
Love the blog idea. I'm a music business graduate student (soon to be graduated graduate student) at University of Miami and am fascinated by IP (obviously as it pertains to music). Keep up the good work.
What a fabulous piece of legislation to benefit one Utah corporation. I eagerly await the next implications of the idea that people should get to view any piece of art they wish without suffering the offense of seeing or hearing things that might make them blush.
How about a new museum where each entrant picks up a little radio frequency transmitter. The patron then pushes buttons to indicate that he doesn't wish to see pee-pee's or boobies. As he walks by Michaelangelo's sculpture of David, the transmitter emits a signal and whoosh! a little curtain drops over the offending naughty bits. Hey, it's a technology that doesn't modify the original work and it's a censorship requested by the viewer... just like ClearPlay! Walk by the painting of Venus, whoosh!, here come the curtains!
Oh, yes, and libraries! How hard will it be to create digital books, where you can program in the levels of sex, violence, and profanity you can tolerate, and as you fip through the pages, the offending words are whited out. Hey, the original work is not modified; anyone else can pick up the same book and read all the naughty bits they want.
After all, the American people have the absolute right to see, hear, read, or watch every piece of art without the ominous threat of experiencing something disturbing. Changing the channel or only choosing art that suits your tastes is far too difficult. Kids should get the chance to see the horrors of the Holocaust in Schindler's List without being forced to see naked emaciated Jews. I'm certain the family can get a complete understanding of the gritty reality of World War II in Saving Private Ryan without hearing those expletives or seeing the human carnage. No one should be forced to experience realism in art. Parents should have the right to reduce movies to the same common artistic denominator of Finding Nemo.
Hey, Russ, the idea that everyone should see what Russ wants them to see because it's "art" is not "freedom." And the idea that people can choose to avoid having their sensibilities offended is not copyright infringement. And that's all the law says.
Hey Ronald 'the idea that everyone should see what Russ wants them to see ' is not Russ's. It's yours.
Let's think about this legislation - say I'm a Nazi Holocaust denier offended by the thought of Auschwitz being 'real' (I'm speaking hypothetically by the way) - this legislation would let me watch Schindlers List without any reference to the Holocaust.
And you agree with it?
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