Congress approves bill to censor movies to 'protect the children'

[Ash]

AP

WASHINGTON Apr 19, 2005 — Fledgling technology that helps parents prevent children from watching movie scenes depicting sex, violence or foul language won new legal protections Tuesday under a bill Congress is sending to President Bush.

The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act would assure manufacturers of DVD players and other devices using such technology they would not be violating copyrights of the Hollywood producers of movies.

The House passed it Tuesday on a voice vote. The Senate passed it in February.

The bill also would make it a federal crime to use video cameras to record films in movie theaters, and it would set tough penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught distributing a movie or song prior to its commercial release.

Moviegoers caught using video cameras in theaters would face up to three years in prison for a first offense and up to six years for later arrests.

The bill's most controversial provision focused on new filtering technology that lets parents automatically skip or mute sections of commercial movies that contain foul language, violence or nudity.

The author of the provision, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, compared a parent's freedom to skip violent movie scenes to skipping offensive passages in a book. That section of the bill was rewritten to ban filtering companies from selling copies of the edited movies.

"It lets parents decide for themselves what children see and hear on television," Smith said. "Raising children may be the toughest job in the world. Parents need all the help they can get."

Some lawmakers said they objected to the filtering provision but voted to approve the bill because of the crackdown on copyright infringement in other parts of the legislation.

"The intent of the movie-filtering technology is to sanitize movies to protect children," said Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif. "While I support family-friendly entertainment, I believe this method is not only a violation of filmmakers' copyright protections but also an infringement of their artistic vision."

[Ash]

First of all. If a movie has sex and violence in it, why are you allowing your children to watch it? Let the government protect you. That way parents don't have to be accountable for anything. Makes perfect sense.

Originally Posted by Ash

First of all. If a movie has sex and violence in it, why are you allowing your children to watch it? Let the government protect you. That way parents don't have to be accountable for anything. Makes perfect sense.

The government isn't protecting you.... The government is permitting private industry to do after market editting of copywriten material.

Its in essence a FF or Mute button - they machine just automates the process - it is no way shape or form censorship..... the government is not elminating, voiding, etc even one inch of film. ONLY the government can censor. You want to the full-on ultra-violence version.... its available for you.

As for the need for such a thing..... yeah..... if the film isn't age appropriate why are parents letting their kids watch it in the first place?

[alexican]

Originally Posted by Ash

AP

WASHINGTON Apr 19, 2005 — "Raising children may be the toughest job in the world. Parents need all the help they can get."

yeah
i suggest a test before anybody is allowed to procreate
maybe some light study material outlining exactly what it means to be a parent might, you know, "help" them out

[transparentaura]

If its sanitizing a copy of a movie they paid for and its not affecting anyone elses access to the movie or the theater release, I don't see a problem. Although it is kind of lame if you ask me. Seems like some feeble minded people looking for some kind of validation from a higher authority to watch something they publicly condemn but privately are titillated by, they probably wouldn't even use the filter for anything more than appearances. Seems to me the party that preached personal responsibility and mocked the "nanny state" is spending an awful lot of time protecting "the children" from all sorts of things that "the childrens" parents ought to be protecting them from.

[Parkaboy]

ya know... i grew up watching all sorts of things i probably shouldnt have but my parents were parent enough to EXPLAIN it to me, properly and i've turned out alright (shut it scruff). i mean asides from an overactive imagination that i would have had anyway i'm fine. no weird sexual tendencies, no urges to go out and shoot up the neighbor hood... i fucking grew up on kiss, alice cooper and ozzy... you dont see me trying to bite the heads off small flying mammals now do ya? NO! you cant blame music or movies for a childs behavior. you can blame poor parenting and NEGLECT (yeah i went there. letting a tv and a daycare raise your child is neglect)

jesus christ... and my parents were TEENAGERS when i was born! people need to learn to take some responsibility for their actions and for raising their children.

[Krash]

Originally Posted by xiannaix

As for the need for such a thing..... yeah..... if the film isn't age appropriate why are parents letting their kids watch it in the first place?

I appreciate that the rest of your post was clarifying the legal position, but I've quoted the only bit that is really appropriate, imo. If you need to censor part of the film to make it acceptable for a child to watch then, erm, the subject matter probably isn't suitable anyway.

I'm just waiting for parents to allow children to watch a 5 minute version of 9 1/2 weeks (edited for sexually explicit material and language, but censored for the 5 year olds).

Complete and utter load of rubbish.

Long live the fundamentalist government of the United States

[Ash]

I let my 8 yr old watch a heavily edited Saving Private Ryan. She didn't understand how a war movie could only be 15 minutes long.

Originally Posted by Krash

Long live the fundamentalist government of the United States

How in the world did yuo get to that comment?

The government isn't doing anything here T.

The Bill is a feel good bunch of nonsense....nothing (afaik) that it "authorizes" cannot already be legally done. Party A buys licnesed copy of movie X and edits it for its target audience...sanitized for the airlines for example. That's legal now and its done now and nothing the Bill says or does changes any of that....

The bill's most controversial provision focused on new filtering technology that lets parents automatically skip or mute sections of commercial movies that contain foul language, violence or nudity.

this controversial provision has just authorized the fast forward and mute buttons..... hooray!



I'm all about bashing assholes who cut up and wreck movies.... but the government, in this case, doesn't deserve your scorn.........you are goring the wrong ox my friend

[Dionysos]

Nevermind that Blockbuster has been doing this for years already. There's a religious organization that was offering this service as well, though their name escapes me.

This is another piece of unnecessary legislation. This is something the movie companies can do on their own as it is, why do we need legislation on it? As has already been said, maybe the parents should just keep the movie out of the view of the children altogether. Personal responsibility surrenders yet again.