An entertainment company that is acting on a 2005 federal law to let parents filter sex, violence and profanity from movies is under attack in Hollywood, drawing support from at least 16 family groups who are threatening to urge a boycott by the 52 million “values audience.”
VidAngel, whose motto is “watch movies however the bleep you want,” took advantage of the Family Movie Act of 2005 and created a filtering system for users who are eager to watch movies but are concerned about offensive content.
It has a simple model: Consumers buy a full-price movie through its system and choose what words and actions they want filtered out. VidAngel does the work and then streams the movie to the consumer. Then they can buy the movie permanently or pay as little as $1 for one view.
VidAngel sees it as a win-win for studios. An individual movie is bought for every customer, and more customers are buying because they can filter out the offending language and scenes that would have kept them from watching.
But Hollywood said the model isn’t legal, amounts to a cheap streaming system for their products and is angered that the movie industry’s art is being tampered with. And it is suing.
The fight has turned into an ugly legal battle, and now many Washington-based family groups are going to bat in court for VidAngel, saying the service is legal under the Family Movie Act.
Media Research Center founder and President Brent Bozell told the Washington Examiner, “Hollywood should be applauding VidAngel for saving them consumers who otherwise won’t buy their product. Instead, Hollywood is on the warpath against VidAngel. They want families poisoned.
“In effect, Hollywood execs are saying, ‘You can only watch our movies if you let us keep all the gratuitous garbage that offends your family.’ How reprehensible of Hollywood. Good for VidAngel for fighting Goliath.”
Donna Rice Hughes, whose Enough Is Enough group has convinced McDonald’s restaurants and others to filter porn from free Internet offered at stores, added, “Protecting youth from pornography and other objectionable online content should be shared by the government, corporate America and the parents.
“It seems to me that VidAngel is making it much easier for parents to be empowered to easily and economically manage the type of film content their children view online.”
Whatever the outcome, polling data provided to the Examiner shows that millions want to be able to filter movies and TV shows and amount to an enormous market Hollywood is missing.
The survey found that the “values audience” represent 37 percent of the entertainment market, are mostly Christian and have kids. Some 57 percent said it is very important for them to know the content is clean before watching, and 82 percent of parents eager to use a filter system before their children watch.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
