Nudity with your car chases now mandatory
It's copyright infringement to sell a cleaned-up copy of a Hollywood movie, even if you include the original piece of filth masterwork with every sale. So says U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch.
I'm of multiple minds on this. Work identity is important. But I'm a great believer in subsidiary works, which is really what we have here. I might have demanded a trailer on the bottom of the screen reading "This work has been altered" or some such, to make it clear that what is being shown is not totally the director's work. The target audience knows that. But just in case some innocent saw an unidentified cleaned-up copy and thought the director was a wuss, screen ID would be an acceptable compromise.
But Hollywood should be careful of what they ask for. As it is, these people are so anxious to be a market for them that they are willing to pay more than the usual price for bowdlerized versions. If they can't get them, they will probably cease buying mainstream videos altogether. That may be a small market, but it's growing, if for no other reason than that they make more babies than average. And it may be bigger than people think; look at the success of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. Movies are a business, and at some point the studios will have business reasons to sit on the directors...and then they'll really have something to cry about.
What I'd like to see is a sanitized version of a Ron Jeremy film. That would be funny.
Comments
Posted by:
Posted on: July 10, 2006 02:20 PM
It might be a market for cleaned versions, but copyright gives Hollywood the first chance to cash in on it.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: July 10, 2006 02:42 PM
So says the judge. But if Hollywood isn't cashing in (and they're not), and nobody else is allowed to do so either, is copyright doing what it was intended to do?
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: July 11, 2006 11:40 PM
That's exactly what copyright is intended to do: to give the originator of the work the right to do (or not do) what he/she wishes (or his representatives, etc.). And if Ron Jeremy doesn't want a bowlderized version of his output to be manufactured, then why should anyone else be able to manufacture it?
I wrote a novel; no publisher I contact was interested in publishing it. Do I have the right to make them publish it? Does someone else have the right to make me give them a copy of that novel with my consent? Does someone else have the right to take that novel, change parts of it, and pass on the new version to others to read without my consent?
You know the answer to all those questions is No.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: July 12, 2006 11:27 AM
This assumes that Ron Jeremy cares about anything but the money. Still, I think that a bowdlerized version of a porno film might have surprising comedic value, as a sendup of the genre if nothing else.