Re: score one for sanity (and oj)


"Lumpy" <lumpy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4hki3jF15tfU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Kris Baker wrote:

Cleanflicks may be giving up without a fight;
they interviewed a franchisee yesterday.
He was trying to sell everything out quickly...

After they've been court ordered to stop?
I guess heaven will be filled with a lot of
"less than brilliant" souls.


Lumpy

Yup. He's cleaning out before they force him to stop.
There must have been word from corporate that the battle's over; at least
one franchisee's attorney told him so:

http://www.sltrib.com/entertainment/ci_4039504

Every week, Aaron Campbell and his family stop by the CleanFlicks video
store in Orem to rent movies such as "The Pink Panther" or "The Matrix." But
these videos have been scrubbed clean of foul language and violence.
Tuesday, the 35-year-old Orem marketing manager stepped into the store
again. But he wasn't renting videos; he was buying because CleanFlicks might
have to close its doors.
"I figure if he's going to go out of business, I'm going to buy a few,"
Campbell said.
A federal court judge 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. They also must hand over all inventory to
movie studios that make the films.
Daniel Thompson, owner of three CleanFlicks video stores in Utah County
and a fourth in Cedar City, believes the ruling from the U.S. District Court
in Colorado includes his video stores, which rent the edited movies to
customers.
"The way it [the ruling] is worded, it will affect everybody," said
Thompson, who has owned the stores for more than five years. "Our attorney's
recommendation is to fold or give up, which is depressing."
So Thompson is having a sort of "going out of business" sale on the
movies in his inventory "to plan for the worst."
The fight between businesses that sanitize movies and Hollywood's biggest
movie directors and studios began three years ago. Judge Richard P. Matsch
ruled last Thursday in favor of Hollywood and ordered the movie-editing
businesses to hand over their inventory by this Thursday.
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 main defendant/plaintiff in the suit is CleanFlicks in American Fork,
the video distributor that does the actual editing and sells the DVDs and
VHS tapes to video stores. The distributor is not to be confused with
Thompson's CleanFlicks video stores, which is a separate entity not named in
the suits.
Ray Lines, chief executive for the video distributor, said Tuesday he
won't decide whether to appeal the court's decision until he talks further
with his attorneys.
"We're still just weighing our options and figuring what we can and can't
do," he said. There are "just so many things we have to look at that are
complicated. We've got to get a grip on exactly what the judge's order
meant."
Lines said he plans to comply with the judge's order for now and has
stopped editing movies. But he can't hand over his inventory to Hollywood
attorneys because most of the movies are still in the hands of renters (he
also rents videos to customers via the Internet).
Businesses similar to Thompson's are waiting for Lines' next move.
If Lines appeals the ruling, the businesses could continue to operate
while the appeal is pending. If Lines doesn't, some fear they will be forced
to close their doors. Lines estimates that there are 80 to 90 edited-movie
businesses in the United States, half of them in Utah.
Flicks Club, a business in Logan that edits videos and distributes them
to other video stores - but is not a party to the suit - continues to
operate despite the ruling.
"They are nonparties and therefore not compelled by the direct court
ruling as CleanFlicks itself might be," said Flicks Club's attorney, Herm
Olsen. "But ultimately, if that ruling is upheld, it would have an ability
to shut down all of the businesses that are otherwise not presently
parties."
Movie renter Campbell said he would miss watching edited movies.
"We'll probably watch less movies or buy selected movies and watch them
over and over," he said. "I love a good movie. I only wish they would allow
me to do what I wanted with a movie so I could enjoy it."
----------------------------------

BYU's newspaper has a picture of one of the filthy (yeah, filthy) places:
http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/60346
(Note the college student in "knee shorts"; someone needs to give that kid a
beer.)

Kris


.

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