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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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DVD NEWS DIGEST
1 -
Dr. Seuss' Cat In The Hat (Pan & Scan) Universal Studios Home
Video April 7 - San Francisco Chronicle: DVD Player to Edit Movies Wal-Mart and Kmart are planning to sell a new DVD player that includes a technology that can automatically skip sexual content, graphically violent scenes and language deemed offensive. The new DVD player will be shipped to stores in the next few weeks. "I think the American public is concerned and is looking for a solution, '' said an executive at a software firm that is one of several companies battling a lawsuit filed by the biggest movie studios and major directors. The suit claims that filtering technology produces an unauthorized and illegal version of their artistic work. Software commands tell the DVD player when to mute dialog or skip segments that show 14 levels of violence, sex, nudity and profanity. The user can pick which filters to activate.
To fight piracy in Russia, where 9 out of 10 DVDs are illegal copies, companies are lowering the price to between $10-15. Piracy is getting worse, contends Konstantin Zemchenkov, director of the Russian Anti-Piracy Organization, a group financed in part by Hollywood studios and the Motion Picture Association of America, which is leading the fight against producers, distributors and retailers of pirated videos and discs in Russia. Zemchenkov said piracy in Russia accounted for 9 out of every 10 DVDs and 6 out of every 10 CDs. At a disc bazaar in Moscow, a pirated copy of a popular current DVD release that has not yet been released in theaters, costs about $4. A Missouri maker of DVD-copying products said that it has appealed a pair of federal court rulings that it stop making and marketing its software. Federal judges in two states ordered the company in recent weeks to stop marketing the software, siding with Hollywood studios that contended the DVD-copying products violate the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bars circumvention of anti-piracy measures used to protect DVDs.
Despite penalties of up to five years' jail for selling illegally copied DVDs, pirated copies are openly sold at trash-and-treasure markets in Australia. The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft says the pirates have almost 10 per cent of the legitimate market, costing legitimate business about $100 million a year. AFACT executive director Adrianne Pecotic said more than 22,000 pirate DVDs were seized last year, mostly in Melbourne, compared with only 143 in 2002. The pirate DVDs were usually made in Asia from master copies.
A state agency looking to encourage civics lessons in Michigan schools is getting some help on a promotional DVD starring area teachers. Several social studies teachers took part in a scripted question-and-answer session that the Michigan Civics Institute plans to use to get educators excited about state and local government. An official said teachers need training to recognize the full potential of online lesson plans, and that's what the DVD aims to do. end
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