COLORADO –U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch last Thursday issued a summary judgment in favor of the Directors Guild of America in its lawsuit against a group of companies that rented and sold “sanitized” DVD versions of major Hollywood films.The summary judgment requires the companies to immediately cease production, rental, and sale of the edited DVDs and to surrender all existing copies of such edited movies to counsel for the production companies who own the copyright to the films, so that the illegal copies can be destroyed. Under the ruling, the companies had five days from the issuance of the order to turn over the edited videos.

The companies in question are Family Flix USA, based in Arizona, CleanFilms, CleanFlicks, and Play It Clean Video, all based in Utah, and a separate CleanFlicks entity, which operates in Colorado.

The companies all share the same basic business model. Each purchases and makes copies of official DVD releases, subsequently editing the films to remove profanity, sexual content, violence, and other “inappropriate” content.

The companies typically include the original version of the DVD along with the edited version when the movies are resold or rented to the public, a fact that their attorneys use to argue that their clients are within “fair use” provisions under copyright law and that their marketing of the “alternative” versions is protected on First Amendment grounds.

Matsch did not agree, seeing the issue as purely a matter of copyright law and the legal protections afforded to the copyright owner of each individual work.

“Their business is illegitimate,” Matsch writes of the companies in his ruling, adding that the “right to control the content of the copyrighted work… is the essence of the law of copyright.”

Matsch reasons that the First Amendment issues raised by CleanFlicks and others are simply not germane to the case and copyright concerns trump the other arguments made.

“Whether these films should be edited in a manner that would make them acceptable to more of the public playing on a DVD in a home environment is more than merely a matter of marketing; it is a question of what audience the copyright owner wants to reach,” the judge states in his ruling. “This court is not free to determine the social value of copyrighted works. What is protected are the creator’s rights to protect its creation in the form in which it was created.”

Matsch also notes that it is the studios’ objective to “stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies,” adding that “there is a public interest in providing such protection.”

The film “sanitizing” companies are uniformly dismayed by Matsch’s ruling, with some vowing to fight on, while one of the companies has already announced that it will close up shop.

“We’re disappointed,” says CleanFlicks’ chief executive Ray Lines. “This is a typical case of David vs. Goliath, but in this case, Hollywood rewrote the ending. We’re going to continue to fight.”

Family Flix, on the other hand, has announced that it will close down its existing business, but said that it would return to fight another day – with a major film studio of its own.

“After five years of providing our customers with the highest editing standards in the industry, we regretfully have decided to close Family Flix,” the company posted to its website. “With Hollywood’s arrogance and billions of dollars they’ve generated through consumer purchases, the studios and producers have legally tried to stop you from viewing content in a manner that supports your standards.”

Richard and Sandy Teraci, the couple behind Family Flix, also stated their intent to create the “largest motion picture studio outside of Hollywood.”

“We will be creating blockbuster films with top-level actors,” states a post to the Family Flix website. “Films you’ll love, but won’t have to cover your children’s eyes or ears, or as an adult, not having to be subjected to someone else’s low standards.”

Another company, ClearPlay, which offers software that can be used in concert with an official release of a DVD title to skip or alter potentially objectionable content, appears to be protected from the copyright infringement claims, because the technology does not involve the direct editing, alteration or copying of the original theatrical release version of the movies.

Last year, Congress passed the 2005 Family Movie Act, which specifically protected companies like ClearPlay, without extending such protections to companies that made actual altered copies of films.

In his ruling, Matsch notes that Congress had the opportunity to extend such protection to companies like CleanFlicks and Family Flix, but opted not to do so.