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..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington



For my money, the Internet's least valuable contribution to the international community of computer-literate men and women is the ability to instantly poll users on such weighty topics as the torture of POWs, soda pop machines in schools and the Hilton sisters.

The interactive surveys on AOL are so routinely frivolous and inane, they make one doubt the intelligence and motives of the people who run the service, and what they must think of us. Like the majority of letters sent to the editors of People and other celebrity-obsessed magazines, the verdicts rendered in such interactive features are far less enlightening than they are depressing.

Who could possibly want to know what a majority of AOL subscribers thinks about "piercing & tattoos," "heavy metal" and, even, how badly their jobs suck . today's topics du jour? Worse, yet, who in their right minds would take the time - even if it only amounts to a tenth of a second - to click on the "don't know" or "no opinion" circle in the neat little boxes? 

The Hollywood Reporter currently is asking its on-line subscribers this question: 

Do you approve of in-home technology that lets users filter out violence and nudity in movies?
Yes -- Meets a market demand
No -- Tramples filmmakers' vision
OK -- With creatives' input
Not sure 

While this issue is of interest to some readers of the trade publication, again, it's worth pondering not only who would bother to punch "not sure," but also what is likely to be done with the results. For instance, will they be reported in the pages of the paper, passed along to the deep thinkers at the DGA and House copyright subcommittee, or read from the stage of the Emmy broadcast? If enough people respond, will there be a move to base a proposition on it in the November election?

Instead of "not sure," "don't know" and "no opinion," wouldn't it be better if the drafters of such polls offered respondents this option, "A pox on both their houses." Like "none of the above" on a presidential ballot, it probably would be the circle darkened most often in these exercises.

As simple as the HR poll makes the ClearPlay sound, it probably deserves closer scrutiny, if only to justify my vote of "A pox on both houses." Or, more appropriately, "A pox on all houses," to account for the opportunists in Congress, as well.

The working principle behind ClearPlay, of course, is hardly fresh or revolutionary. Several other technologies, including the V-Chip, already exist -- or will shortly be introduced into the marketplace -- that digitally regulate content. Blockbuster and other store chains practice a very inexact version of the "filtering" science by restricting the availability of NC-17 movies to their customers.

Currently on sale at your local Wal-Mart, for $70, are RCA progressive-scan DVD players with ClearPlay. Hard to ignore a price like that.

According to company literature, "ClearPlay works with the regular DVDs that you already rent or purchase from your local stores. When you put a movie in a ClearPlay enabled DVD player, you can enjoy the show -- without needing to worry about the occasional R or PG-13 content. It's as if you had super-fast fingers and were able to punch remote control buttons fast and accurately enough to skip and mute certain content, but still maintain the movie's continuity and entertainment value!"

The potentially dangerous categories -- violence, explicit scenes and nudity, and language -- are further divided into14 degrees of severity and crudeness. The ClearPlay filtering software tells the machine when to mute or fast-forward through a snippet or scene whose content has been referenced by a panel of "movie experts" -- somewhere in the bowels of Utah -- as possibly being offensive.

To reap the full benefits of the technology, owners of a ClearPlay-enhanced device also must subscribe to a service that provides filters for each new movie rated by the panel. There are two options: $4.95 a month (or $49 a year) buys access to all ClearPlay filters, including new releases, or, for a one-time charge of $40, access to filters that are 90 days old. One hundred filters for popular PG-13- and R- rated movies are bundled into each newly purchased player, with another 500 more available at Wal-Mart or the company website.

As Ron Popeil is wont to say: no muss, no fuss . set it and forget it.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with this concept. In fact, I'd consider buying one myself if it would automatically filter out the Miller Lite commercials, featuring the otherwise funny Bob Odenkirk doing his best impression of Howard Dean in full rant. After the first airing, they're beyond irritating.

The ClearPlay folks saw an opportunity and took it. If I didn't know any better, I'd think Janet Jackson's half-time peepshow was part of a cleverly disguised marketing campaign for the product.

That said, I wouldn't recommend anyone rush out to invest in the company. Remember how terrific the VCR+Plus concept looked when it first arrived on the scene. Unfortunately for the consumers who bought into it - and the newspapers that still run those stupid numbers -- it almost immediately proved to be a superfluous technology.

ClearPlay appears to be a much easier product to use, however, and it's possible there will be a critical mass of parents who are looking for such safeguards. All ClearPlay wants to do, in my opinion, is find enough brand-name partners to make a killing, before those same parents lose interest in the gizmo. Gemstar, after all, managed to con a lot of manufacturers to buy into its numbers game.

Hollywood's so-called creative community got its collective panties in a bundle when the media started writing about the device, as if it were the second coming of TiVo. The subsequent outcry, which was limited to one or two zip codes on the west side of L.A., seemed to play into the marketing scheme of the Salt Lake City-based company.

According to a story last week in the Hollywood Reporter, at the same time several major studios and the DGA are suing ClearPlay, "Hollywood is in negotiations with the company on how to do business."

The networks followed the same pattern of intimidation, negotiation and exploitation with the makers of TiVo and Replay. In those cases, the networks argued that their advertising inventories would be devalued if viewers could skip through commercials or watch "Frasier," instead of the late news. That hasn't proven to be the case.

Like everything else is Hollywood, the whole controversy boils down to money and control.

MPAA president Jack Valenti's opinion is, "We believe that no one should revise, edit, omit or otherwise change a motion picture without the permission of the copyright owner. . (T)he motion picture industry supports editing movies to make them appropriate for viewing by particular audiences, but we also strenuously believe that revisions/editing/omissions by third parties collides with the creative expression of those who made the movie and those who hold the copyright to that film."

In other words, "Where's our cut?"

Fact is the copyright holders and directors are fully cognizant of the fact that very few movies are shown on network television and basic cable intact. Most carry a disclaimer advising viewers that the movie has been modified to fit the aspect of a standard TV monitor, and edited for possibly objectionable content. Movies shown on airplanes are literally butchered to fit the even more narrow parameters of the airlines.

The DGA apparently is OK with this policy, as its members are allowed the first swing of the ax on their movies.

Moreover, studios routinely order directors and producers to cut a picture to get a PG-13 or R rating - thus, occasionally altering the artistic vision of it creators - and, then, will reverse course by sending out R-, NC-17 or unrated versions of the same picture in video form. Some indie distributors have been known to re-cut a NC-17 theatrical release to R, to get it into Blockbuster.

"When you buy a video or a DVD of a film, you expect to see the work re-created in its original form, not some bastardization for the sake of someone else's idea of morality," Irwin Winkler argued in a recent edition of the WGA magazine. "If you go into the museum and see the painting of the 'Three Graces,' you don't expect them to be wearing bras because nudity offends some of the people who attend an exhibit with their children."

No, we don't. Ostensibly, though, it's OK to bleep cuss words and blur partial nudity on television, as long as the copyright holders do the dirty work.

Will we ever know what Stanley Kubrick thought about the digital voyeurs, who were inserted into Eyes Wide Shut to block our view of the real schtupping and kept the film from going out NC-17? Will American audiences ever get to see the uncut version on DVD?

For its part, ClearPlay insists that its technology does not make copies of movies, nor does it change the actual disc. It simply gives consumers the tools to watch movies as they wish.

As one of those consumers who, like Winkler, "expect to see the work re-created in its original form," my wish is to discover a machine that de-blurs and de-bleeps the naughty parts of programs on my television set. I'm an adult. I can take it.

The ClearPlay censors can't be any more ham-handed than the ones already in place at the networks and basic-cable channels. No way.

The larger problem here comes in the form of the meatheads in Congress who see in the ClearPlay controversy an opportunity to pretend they occupy the high moral ground. Just as Jackson opened the door to higher fines for bad behavior on radio and television, the mere existence of a filtering devise is enough to get the censorial juices flowing.

"This technology does not violate the copyright and trademark laws of our nation, nor does the technology violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) last week. "The issue is simply about the electronic equivalent of what parents did a generation ago to protect their children, by muting the sound and forwarding over objectionable material."

Even if his assumptions are correct - and, my guess is they are - I wouldn't trust a Texas Republican's motives as far as I could throw a statue of John Tower.

Within two weeks, Smith added, he and Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) "are prepared to introduce legislation or use other legislative vehicles to protect the ability of parents to shield their children from violence, sex and profanity in movies."

He didn't say if this included photographs and videos of prisoners being tortured in Iraq, although they would seem to fall under ClearPlay's sub-categories of "disturbing images," "graphic violence," "crude sexual content," "nudity, explicit sexual situations," "vain reference to deity," "crude language & humor," "ethnic and social slurs" and "graphic vulgarity."

If Smith and Sensenbrenner have their way, I suspect, they'll eventually convince ClearPlay to create filters that would eliminate all references to liberals, too. If that happens, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would make perfect celebrity endorsers.

- by Gary Dretzka

May 26, 2004


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