So here’s an interesting problem.

ClearPlay is a software company which is now bundling its software with RCA DVD players — software that will filter “objectionable” content from movies, such as violence, sexual content or foul language.

Sounds fine in theory, one supposes — certainly this is something that family-friendly organizations would applaud, being able to remove content that you wouldn’t want your children to see, for example. But does this violate copyright? See, for example, the brave soul who woke the sleeping giant of Lucasfilm with The Phantom Edit, a fan-produced “reworking” of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE. (Note: the Salon article requires you to sit through a fifteen-second ad before reading the rest…) If someone (not the copyright holder, such as the studio) takes a film and cuts out certain scenes, regardless of their content, thus making a “new” film, isn’t that the very essence of copyright violation? And if that’s the case, isn’t that EXACTLY what ClearPlay and CleanFilms and the other filtering companies are doing?

Interesting.