“Clean Flicks, Illegal Flicks?”

Hollywood directors file suit against CleanFlicks

When we last saw CleanFlicks, the video company that cuts nudity, sex, violence, and bad language from films, it was expanding (CT, March 11). Now the Directors Guild of America wants to shut it down. With Hollywood threatening to sue, CleanFlicks of Colorado took preemptive action, asking a U.S. District Court to rule whether its work is legal. The directors (with support from the Writers Guild of America) countersued, saying that edited films infringe on copyright and mislead customers. "It destroys the credibility of our films and our names," Martin Scorsese told the Los Angeles Times. CleanFlicks president John Dixon told The Salt Lake Tribune that the suit "has really hurt" efforts to work with Hollywood instead of against it.

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Related Elsewhere

Christianity Today previous coverage of CleanFlicks includes:

Everybody's a DirectorCleanFlicks and Movie Mask give film fans an alternative.

Film Forum: Adventures in Poetry and SurfingHollywood directors sue CleanFlicks. (August 22, 2002)

Film Forum: Is a Clean Movie Unrealistic?Readers debate movie-editing software. (August 29, 2002)

- More from Ted Olsen

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