Bush Just Doin' It For The Kids

On Wednesday of this week, President Bush signed ("privately, and without comment") the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA) -- a nefarious and sneaky little document that includes a possibly dangerous precedent about the legality of altering a film. Movie studios should be up in arms about this one, but (unsurprisingly) they've chosen to act in the best interest of their bottom line, rather than the concerns of many major directors. So what's in FECA? Well, there is some good material in there -- it reauthorizes and expands the efforts of the National Film Preservation Board to include video, television, and digital formats, and to make the collected works more accessible for research and educational purposes. It also allows libraries to make copies of rare works that are no longer available in commercial form. Then there's the questionable -- using a video camera in a movie theater is now an imprisonable offence. Interesting to note that 'fair use' rules do not apply here. If you are caught videotaping a film, you can get up to three years in prison, six if it is a second offence. While Filmbrain is against the illegal recording of films, the penalties do seem a tad harsh. On top of that, the bill provides immunity to theater owners, who are now allowed to "detain in a reasonable manner, and for a reasonable amount of time" anybody suspected of having recorded a film. (Isn't this a bit extreme in a bill that is primarily about copyright protection?) FECA also includes new punishments for people who distribute copies of pre-release material. A preregistration system for copyrighted works that aren't yet copyrighted is going to be created. However, the scariest bit of the FECA is the Family Movie Act of 2005. This clears the way for companies that distribute self-edited versions of films (or technology that performs the same function) by making them exempt from trademark infringement. [See update note below.] What's truly evil about this is that many of the companies that do this sort of thing (ClearPlay, CleanFilms, CleanFlicks, FamilyFlix, etc.) are in the midst of lawsuits with several directors, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Sydney Pollack, and Curtis Hanson (to name a few) -- lawsuits that are now basically rendered useless by the passing of this act. It's interesting to note that the same technology, if used to remove commercials from recorded programs, is NOT covered by this act. (Six pages of the bill go into detail why editing films is good, but skipping commercials is the root of all evil.) This goes beyond simple sanitization efforts to remove nudity and foul language. Look at some of their edits: Schindler's List - All depictions of Schindler's extramarital affairs have been removed. The Spongebob Squarepants Movie - A scene of a male starfish singing and dancing while wearing high heels has been cut. ("We don't hate homosexuals. We just don't think that lifestyle should be glorified. It's becoming rampant in more types of films." - Sandra Teraci, FamilyFlix) The Hurricane - During Hurricane Carter's arrest, racial epithets uttered by the police have been cut. That last one is particularly dangerous -- by destroying one of the central themes of the film, they are in effect re-writing history, and replacing it with one that they think best for their subscriber's children. If these films are so offensive to their values, why don't they just simply not rent or buy them? Surely there are enough films full of virtuous white married heterosexuals that these people can show their children, yeah? (Perhaps truly altering films is the next step -- Rhett will stay with Scarlett in order to preserve the sanctity of marriage.) The Family Movie Act of 2005 is just more of Bush's pandering to the Christian right, and there really ought to be greater opposition to it. As usual, they hide behind the "FECA is about the children" banner, when in fact it's just another example of the administration attempting to legislate morality and values. (When asked why The Passion of the Christ isn't edited, Teraci commented that there was no need because "everyone has already seen it". Nuff said.) Though the bill passed unanimously, there were some minority views written by the likes of John Conyers and Howard Berman that cover several issues, including the danger to artistic freedom and integrity, a position the lawyers for ClearPlay etc. took great pains to argue against. (Berman called FECA the "Profits for ClearPlay" legislation.) The entire report can be found HERE -- worth downloading if just to read these minority views. Filmbrain wonders under what circumstances the Family Movie Act won't apply. Some years back, fans created their own edits of The Phantom Menace in an attempt to remove offensive material (read: Jar-Jar Binks). These were deemed in violation of copyright as they were considered derivative works. Yet the same rules no longer apply to these family friendly firms, and that's just hypocritical. Perhaps someone needs to challenge the bill by creating a service that filters everything out but the nudity, sex, violence, etc. What are your thoughts on the subject? Are Soderbergh, Scorsese et. al. correct in decrying desecration? Should firms like ClearPlay be allowed to remove content they deem offensive? Can one person possibly speak to the values of all their customers? And what of the other parts of FECA? Is three years in prison too steep a sentence for somebody who uploads an as-yet-unreleased Eminem CD? [Related link: NWA's groundbreaking album Straight Outta Compton, edited down to just the explicit content.] [UPDATE: A closer reading of the bill reveals that the Family Movie Act was geared to benefit ClearPlay alone. Technology that "makes content imperceptible" is covered by the bill. Companies that sell or rent altered DVDs are not protected. Still, it puts an end to the outstanding litigation, a fact that ClearPlay boasts about on their site. Still, there is no question that the bill is a gift to the Christian right. One of the ClearPlay filters is "vain references to deity". Now why would a (supposedly) secular government create a bill to protect a for-profit corporation with a clear religious agenda? Remember, their initial claim was to remove sex, violence, and profanity. The bill does not place limitations on what they are allowed to filter. An ammendment put forth last year (H.R. 4586) by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to limit the filters to sex, violence, and profanity was defeated. (It's interesting to note that the studios offered to license the TV/airplane versions to ClearPlay, but ClearPlay still wanted the power to apply their own edits. Again, there is an agenda here.]

Comments

[Filmbrain]

Yes, but by that logic, why can't we say "if you object to the movie, don't buy/watch it."

[Roy Geebiv]

Filmbrain, Thanks for posting on this subject.

You wrote: "Yes, but by that logic, why can't we say 'if you object to the movie, don't buy/watch it.'"

You can (and you did in your post). I don't think either of these arguments are wrong, but I don't think either trumps the other.

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Another interesting note in the Report:

The Committee is aware of concerns regarding the legislation’s impact upon moral rights, particularly those of movie directors. The Committee had hoped to receive testimony from a representative of the director’s community on this issue at one of the Committee hearings on the issue, but no director was willing to testify.

It is interesting that the directorial community had such a great interest, yet none chose to appeal. Now, granted, it doesn't say who was asked, but still it is interesting. One would think that at least one director would have showed up, if this thing was that big of a deal.

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In addition, in your post you state:

One of the ClearPlay filters is "vain references to deity". Now why would a (supposedly) secular government create a bill to protect a for-profit corporation with a clear religious agenda? Remember, their initial claim was to remove sex, violence, and profanity. The bill does not place limitations on what they are allowed to filter. An ammendment put forth last year (H.R. 4586) by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to limit the filters to sex, violence, and profanity was defeated.

The answer, of course, is that the law has to be content neutral. Under the First Amendment, the law cannot exempt religious speech any more than it could exempt any other kind of speech. It can't limit what can or cannot be filtered, but must be neutral regarding the content of the speech exempted. It can't be limited to just sex, violence and profanity, or it would violate the First Amendment.

This is such a basic, fundamental principal of Constitutional Law that I think Schiff pushed this Amendment, hoping it would pass, specifically because he knew that no Court would permit the legislation to make some speech more protected than others. I think he set out to pass an unconstitutional bill, in order to defeat a bill judicially that he could not defeat democratically. (That underhanded, undemocratic bastard...)

[Krew Sayder]

Does Clearplay have a religious agenda for manufacturing its filtering system? I don't know and I don't care. Did politicians act apprpriately in approving a bill that allows ClearPlay to continue to exist? Again, I don't know and I don't care. What I do care about is that now objectionable movie content that I'd rather not experience will not make its way into my living room through my TV set. If I choose to skip over profanity and excessive violence while playing my own DVD's, that's my business, not Steven Spielberg's. If I choose not to hear some actor say that tired expression "Oh my God" every five minutes, why should I be forced to listen to it if I don't have to?

I use ClearPlay for me and me alone. If you don't like what it does, don't buy it.

[RAVI KUMAR]

hi ha me tumhara member banana cahtahu

sorry my eng is very weak

[Duncan]

Hm... if producing an altered version of an original work is bad (the comment about adding music to Brakhage's movies brought this to mind), then surely we all object to playing "Dark Side of the Moon" over "The Wizard of Oz", let alone producing videos of the result? Doesn't this violate the will of the auteur?

[Filmbrain]

Well...stoners imagining links between Moon and Oz is a far cry from actually editing a film.

I myself was listening to Coltrane while watching the World Cup this weekend to escape the inanity of the US commentators.

[Duncan]

I don't think it's only stoners who imagine the link, but what I meant was that I've seen videos (and I think DVDs), produced by amateurs, for rent in independent video stores, with the Floyd music dubbed as the Wizard's soundtrack.

As for watching the World Cup while listening to Coltrane -- for shame! This violates somebody's artistic vision, though I'm not sure whose.