An ongoing dispute between the Director's Guild of America and Salt Lake City DVD newcomer ClearPlay escalated last week.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Menomonee Falls, serving as House Judiciary Committee Chairman, has instructed a copyright panel to investigate the lawsuit filed by the DGA two years ago. The suit originally revolved around ClearPlay's computer software, which automatically filters out objectionable content by muting words and skipping scenes of violence, nudity and drug use. In the intervening two years since the suit was filed, ClearPlay software has since been incorporated into an entry-level RCA brand DVD player; the ClearPlay player costs $79 and is already available at Wal-Mart.
The Judiciary Committee's investigation will culminate in a hearing sometime in mid-May, barring a settlement beforehand. Sensenbrenner's directive seems to come at a convenient time, at the high point of a media storm revolving around \objectionable content"" stemming from Janet Jackson's Super Bowl costume malfunction. I can't help but think the government will once again support another ill-conceived censorship technology-remember that V-Chip in everyone's televisions no one uses?
That's not to say ClearPlay should lose the suit. There is clearly a market for such a device, and any adult using it is doing so voluntarily. At the same time, I think it is only fair that directors have the right to withhold their films from being programmed into the ClearPlay software. The technology still plays discs that have not been filtered for content, and while a DVD may lose a few sales because of such a move, the loss would be negligible and likely worth it to directors wishing to preserve their original vision. Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh and Steven Spielberg all are a part of the suit, and I think they have a point-although I'm not sure Spielberg and his buddy George Lucas can talk about preserving their ""original vision,"" given their penchant for altering their classic films.
What bothers me about ClearPlay is not that the government will likely allow it to remain in the market, it's that there's a market for ClearPlay in the first place. Didn't the film industry implement ratings for this very reason? The various ways people can protect themselves from objectionable content continues to grow at a ridiculous rate, and ClearPlay is just another device adding to the confusion of parents who aren't always that technology-savvy in the first place.
Of course, the market isn't entirely composed of parents and guardians seeking to protect their children-there are adults using the technology simply to ""clean up"" their movies. While I understand their frustration with films that present swearing and violence as though they're entertainment in and of themselves, the finest films almost always deal with adult themes of one kind or another. Quite frankly, if people want disinfected and non-offensive movies, that's their choice. But cutting away objectionable material also can cut away the humanity and reality of these films-part of the reason they're great in the first place.
wwtemby@wisc.edu.
