A video firm that edits racy scenes and blue language from Hollywood flicks has fired a shot at the Sundance Kid.
Clean Flicks of Colorado, a licensee of Utah-based Clean Flicks, named Robert Redford and 15 other A-list directors in a lawsuit that asks a judge to rule whether snipping content from a movie violates federal copyright laws.
Robert Huntsman, the inventor of movie-editing technology that removes objectionable material from DVDs, joined Clean Flicks in the fight against the Director's Guild of America.
The suit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Denver.
Pete Webb, spokesman for the Colorado store, said the suit was filed after the company learned from the guild's Web site that the group planned to seek an injunction against the company's practice of editing profanity, violence, gore and nudity from movies.
Webb said the lawsuit will clarify whether the company has the First Amendment right to change property it has purchased and whether movie editing violates the country's copyright laws.
Clean Flicks operates like a cooperative. Customers pay a fee to become a member, which makes them part owners of the store's library of edited movies. Only members have access to the films.
"There is a great market out there for this service. We are surprised that Hollywood hasn't filled this need," said Webb. "We just don't think that families should have to see movies with the 'F' word."
Webb pointed out that the guild did not make plans to challenge airline companies or television studios. "The directors allow those edits, but they've raised objection about the rental area," he said.
The guild denounces the lawsuit.
A written statement by the DGA says the Clean Flicks suit is "wholly without merit. In fact, we believe it is the plaintiffs who, through their unauthorized altering of original works, are in violation of the law."
"Appallingly, the plaintiffs rely on the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment as an excuse to alter original works and pass them along — for profit — to the public," the statement says.
"Perhaps they are unaware that the United States Constitution directed Congress to pass laws to ensure that the creators of original works had the 'exclusive right' to their work and prohibited their unauthorized exploitation by others for financial gain."
John Dixon, one of the top executives of Utah's Clean Flicks, said the lawsuit "could have opened a bag of worms. Or maybe the bag of worms had already been opened."
Dixon said DGA representatives this week invited him to a meeting next week at guild headquarters in California. He hopes to persuade the director's group to become a partner in the edited-movie business, at least to determine editing standards or guidelines.
"I want them to understand how we do it," he said. "There is a Constitutional right to edit your own property."
Seventy-six Clean Flicks stores operate in the western United States. The majority are in Utah, Idaho and Colorado.
E-MAIL: jeffh@desnews.com