Film producer sounds off on sanitizing technology

WEST JORDAN — The producer of Academy Award-winning "Schindler's List" has no beef with technology that allows viewers to zip through offensive content on movie DVDs.

But Jerry Molen has mixed feelings about companies that edit and resell films.

"One company, ClearPlay . . . I totally support what they're doing there," Molen said Friday of the Utah-based filtering technology company, now more protected from copyright infringement lawsuits in a bill President Bush signed into law this week.

Molen likens the technology to doing the same thing a person would with a remote control: "The DVD . . . has not been altered. The world of the artist is still contained on the DVD."

But "I don't know how I feel about (editing and reselling DVDs). I think there's a copyright problem there, but I'm not a lawyer. But I understand why they're doing it," he said. "But it hasn't been done with permission."

Molen's comments came in a dialogue at West Jordan High School, whose stage was turned into a set for an Independent Student Media Internet broadcast to ISM-affiliated schools worldwide.

Molen was interviewed by ISM co-founder and Hollywood filmmaker Chet Thomas, who said the Utah high school's Film Academy was the first to join the ISM group.

The chat focused on Molen's career and productions, which include blockbusters "Hook," "Jurassic Park" and "Minority Report." Molen later took questions from West Jordan Film Academy students and Internet viewers.

Molen's opinion on film sanitizing was the first question asked, perhaps in light of the new law and Utah companies altering films to be more family friendly.

Hollywood studios and directors had sued ClearPlay to halt creation and distribution of electronic filtering devices for DVD players, citing copyright protection.

But the new Family Entertainment and Copyright Act created a copyright law exemption protecting companies selling filtering technology. Other companies that produce edited DVD copies of popular movies and sell them directly to consumers, however, are not protected under the new law.

But a gray area could remain. Family Flix, for instance, has customers purchase a copy of a movie. The company, upon receiving the film, gives the customer an edited version along with the original, which is rendered unplayable.

Molen, whose career spans from driving a truck to the Bates Motel in "Psycho" to running Steven Spielberg's company, Amblin Entertainment, lamented the lack of family-friendly movies these days. He also decried gratuitous language, nudity or sex "there to titillate and not inspire or explain."

"I think people should just tell wonderful stories," he said.