A Colorado judge has ruled that editing other peoples’ films and then selling them on is illegal.

The order affects the likes of Utah-based CleanFlicks, CleanFilms and Play It Clean Video, Arizona-based Family Flix USA and another CleanFlicks, from Colorado, all of whom have been editing films for violence, sex and bad language, in the face of the studios’ wrath. The fight started in August 2002 when CleanFlicks of Utah filed a suit against the Directors Guild of America and 16 leading directors, seeking a court ruling clarifying its right to market the videos on First Amendment grounds. The DGA and directors countersued the following month. By December 2002, the case had snowballed when eight major studios filed suit against CleanFlicks and its peers for copyright infringement.

The 16 page ruling by Judge Richard P. Matsch states that the editing companies are violating the studios’ rights as copyright holders “to control the reproduction and distribution of the protected work in their original form.”

“It is particularly gratifying that the court recognized that this conduct is not permitted under copyright laws,” Apted said in a statement. “Audiences can now be assured that the films they buy or rent are the vision of the filmmakers who made them and not the arbitrary choice of a third-party editor.”

“No matter how many disclaimers are put on the film, it still carries the director’s name,” he added. “So we have great passion about protecting our work, which is our signature and brand identification, against unauthorized editing.”

The ruling affects firms selling or producing altered versions of the films but not companies selling software that skips and mutes parts of movies on DVD.

A posting on Family Flix’s website reported that the company had decided to close its doors after five years as a result of the ruling. The company would routinely edit content for homosexuality, “perversion” and cohabitation.

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