Family Home Movie Act of 2005

Citation

Family Home Movie Act of 2005, Tit. II of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-9, 119 Stat. 218, 223 (Apr. 27, 2005).

Overview

The Act is an exemption which allows the creation of technology that can edit a DVD movie on the fly and create a censored version of that movie. This provision arose out of a lawsuit between ClearPlay, a Salt Lake City-based company that markets DVD-sanitizing technology, and a number of Hollywood studios and directors. The ClearPlay technology allows a home consumer to screen out up to 14 different categories of objectionable content, such as drug use, sexual situations, or foul language.

The Act does not permit one to create a new hard copy of a movie in a completely "sanitized" format, nor does it permit the technology to replace or insert new video or audio to replace the offending content. Thus, a company cannot create and market a clean DVD copy of a movie, but it can develop a DVD player which can be programmed to skip past the offending parts and/or blank out the offending video or audio contained in a scene.