Part 1 – The Double Standard of the Directors Guild

A US federal court in Denver “ruled last week that companies that sanitize Hollywood videos of violence, language or sex are violating U.S. copyright law and must stop the practice.”

According to an article in The Salt Lake Tribune, “The Directors Guild of America, which is a party to the suit and represents 16 famous filmmakers - including Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg - would only applaud the judge's ruling and say that editing movies should be in the hands of filmmakers and not third parties.”

The Washington Post lists the studios involved as:

MGM, Time Warner, Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Walt Disney Co., DreamWorks, Universal, 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. The directors named in the initial August 2002 filing included Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Steven Soderbergh, Michael Mann, Robert Altman, Curtis Hanson, Betty Thomas and DGA president Michael Apted.

This article is not about the legitimacy of the ruling or a defense of Clean Flicks.  That is being discussed by others much more knowledgeable (Personally, I think Clean Flicks was probably in violation of copy-right laws).

This article is not about the moral position of Hollywood.  That is being thoroughly discussed by the Christian and conservative right.

Hollywood to America: You Must Watch Our Smut

This article is about the lies and inconsistency of The Directors Guild.

They claim that editing movies should be in the hands of filmmakers and not third parties.

"Audiences can now be assured that the films they buy or rent are the vision of the filmmakers who made them and not the arbitrary choices of a third-party editor," filmmaker and Director's Guild head Michael Apted told the press.

       

"These films carry our name and reflect our reputations," continued Apted. "So we have great passion about protecting our work...against unauthorized editing."

So if I am to understand the basis of their lawsuit, The Director’s Guild does not ever want any third party to arbitrarily edit their films?

Then explain to me:

The Director’s Guild has now successful sued Clean Flicks to prevent them from removing offensive material from their movies, yet they do not provide any alternative to the market.

And here is The Director’s Guild’s biggest Double Standard:

They will not tolerate this to happen here in America, yet Hollywood movies are severely edited by third parties every day in Muslim countries to meet strict censorship standards and Hollywood raises no objections.

             

Conservative, Muslim Malaysia has gotten its very own customized HBO broadcast, but even viewers in more liberal countries can only view censored versions of movies. Since HBO is headquartered in Singapore, HBO censors anything the Singaporean authorities might find objectionable and even viewers in other Asian countries are unable to view it. Items censored in the past include violence, nudity, profanity, the upraised middle finger, and even programs such as "Sex and the City".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBO_Asia

In reference to the Clean Flicks lawsuit, DGA President Michael Apted said: "... we have great passion about protecting our work, which is our signature and brand identification, against unauthorized editing."

So their stance is no third-party editing, no un-supervised editing.  So how do they explain this?

One of the members of The Director’s Guild who participated in the suit is Martin Scorsese, who directed Casino that starred Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, and Joe Pesci.

Casino was broadcast on HBOAsia.  HBOAsia responded to censorship demands by cable and satellite companies in predominantly Muslim countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia and HBO technicians did over 300 cuts before the film was approved to be shown.  HBO states that it edits up to 18 new movies per month.  These edits are not done under the supervision of the filmmakers.  These edits and this censorship are happening by a third party, on a daily basis, by technicians in some HBO Singapore office.

Muslim Malaysia requires so much editing of the movies to clean them up, that HBO Vice President Vincent Teo said, "If you want to find out really quick what happens at the end of a movie, watch the Malaysian version."

So, Mr. Scorsese and the rest of The Director’s Guild, are you not harmed by the editing and censorship by HBOAsia?  Are not all those Muslims deprived of seeing your original work?  Does this not hurt your work, your brand, your identification?

Why do you allow Muslims to see unauthorized edited versions of your work that is cleaned up, but you do not offer that choice to Americans?

Are you going to sue HBOAsia against this third party editing?

If not, why not?

And why do you not make those edited versions available to America?

Next: Hollywood Doesn’t Get Unbundled, Mashable, Plastic, Consumer Controlled Content