ClearPlay is very, very proud of itself. After distancing itself from companies that create "family-friendly" versions of hit films, the DVD manufacturer sent a press release with this headline:

ClearPlay 1, Steven Spielberg 0

Powerful words, little company. The press release goes on to tout ClearPlay as the stick-our-fingers-in-your-eye victor of a Congressional law.

As the company explains, the DVD players don't alter the movies people pop into their players -- that would violate copyright laws. Instead, they skip over certain scenes ... much in the same way, say, a broken DVD player would.

The press release follow:

It’s not often that legendary director Steven Spielberg doesn’t get his way when it comes to his movies. Or Robert Redford. Or Martin Scorsese. Or Sydney Pollack. But all of those directors, along with every major Hollywood studio, will be disappointed this month with the debut of a new product designed to change the way people watch movies. A company called ClearPlay makes a DVD player that lets parents skip over objectionable content in DVD’s they watch in their home. The debut of their newest player this month on Target shelves nationwide is the first product launched since a battle with Hollywood that literally took an act of Congress to resolve.
ClearPlay’s DVD player is equipped with technology that lets parents mute or seamlessly skip over content they don’t want their kids to see. Individual electronic ‘filters’ that are downloaded onto the player tell the DVD to skip or mute over sex, violence, or profanity as the DVD is playing based on the parameters parents set prior to watching the movie. The technology does not alter the original DVD in any way. It merely acts as a high tech fast forward or mute button that works automatically.
ClearPlay is often lumped in with other companies like Clean Flicks that literally edit released movies and sell them as new DVDs. In fact, in 2002, the Directors Guild of America sued ClearPlay and those other companies for copyright infringement. Joining in the suit were Disney, DreamWorks, MGM, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Warner, Robert Altman, Michael Mann, Sidney Pollack, Robert Redford, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg Himself.
Faced with such powerful (and deep-pocketed) adversaries, ClearPlay struggled to separate themselves from the companies that actually edited movies for resale. Eventually, Congress stepped in. Part of the law passed in 2005 aimed at cracking down on movie piracy was a provision that the type of filtering technology employed by ClearPlay did NOT violate copyright laws. A few months later, Hollywood dropped ClearPlay from the lawsuit.
The ClearPlay-branded DVD player available this month in Target stores is the first product ClearPlay has introduced since the lawsuit was dropped. Customers who buy the player subscribe to a service that downloads new movie filters as new DVDs are released every week.