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Editing Software Reignites Ire Of Film Directors

By Brenda Sandburg
June 01, 2004

This spring, RCA launched a DVD player that includes a software program by ClearPlay Inc. that is preprogrammed to filter out nudity, sex, violence and harsh language from hundreds of movies ranging from “Lost in Translation” to “The Cat in the Hat.”

The technology has created a furor in Hollywood, with a group of 16 prominent directors ' including Stephen Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Robert Redford and Stephen Soderbergh ' teaming up with seven motion picture studios to get it off the market. The directors claim the editing violates their trademarks by mutilating and diluting their movies, while the studios argue it infringes their copyrights by creating derivative works.

Litigation between the directors and studios and several filtering companies, including ClearPlay, began nearly 2 years ago. But RCA's DVD player has put the legal drama back in the headlines.

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