Congress moves to empower parents to censor DVD's

March 10, 2005

A bill allowing anyone to filter the curse words, sex scenes and violence out of movie DVDs moved closer to approval by Congress on Wednesday. Passing handily by a voice vote, the House Judiciary Committee gave it the green light and sent it sailing to the full House. No doubt after viewing many hours of the afore mentiioned scenes as "evidence". The valuable time is being spent, thanks to the movie industry threatening to sue the makers of devices that would help parents skip over what they thought was offensive material in movies. The Hollywood studios and directors were up in arms declaring such activity a (you guessed it) violation of copyright.

This legislation would create an exemption in the copyright laws to make sure companies that offer the technology like ClearPlay, a Salt Lake City business, won't get sued out of existence. But in addition to this, there is a bit of extra baggage that has become attached to the original bill:

In addition, the bill, called the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, would create new penalties for criminals who use small videocameras to record and sell bootlegged copies of first-run films.
If the bill becomes law, people convicted of using cameras to bootleg movies could face as much as three years in federal prison plus fines, with the sentence doubling to six years upon a second conviction.
It also would reauthorize a Library of Congress program dedicated to saving rare, culturally significant works.
"The films saved by the program do not enjoy the protection of big studios," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "Rather, the act will help to preserve avant-garde works, home movies, silent-era films, and other treasures that shed a great deal of light on America's past."