Content Skipping and Copyright
Poor laws require more enforcement than well thought out laws. A new law in the US allows for content-skipping technology to be employed in DVD players so that parents can auto-pilot their children past dubious content in DVDs or other media. Home censorship in the hands of parents sounds excellent in theory. After all in our modern world, we view parents as liable for the actions of their children, so it stands to reason that parents should be the final arbiter of whether a child sees something dreadful or damaging.
In theory. In reality it is a violation of free speech. It is the author's right to be recognised for their own work, and if that work is changed or edited by a machine, then it is no longer a faithful representation of the author's work. Copyright law exists to protect the right of the author to make duplicates of movies, texts or music. Originators should be able to preserve the integrity and meaning of their communications alongside duplication control. Otherwise it is not free speech but encumbered speech.
A film maker or writer carefully structures a story so it works. When parts of it are missing by a mechanical or electronic means, there is nothing the author can do to ensure a faithful reproduction of the work. Most authors would prefer that their work not be distributed in an edited or abridged way.
If you took all the profanity and violence out of Shakespere - what do you have left? Not Shakespere. You have an inferior and less powerful rendition that can not impart the same social meaning as the full product. Inferior representations pollute the integrity of human thought and careful planning. Consumer disappointment is the result. That, and badly educated children who think a Shakespere play is a nice fairy story. Pity them, for when they meet with the real world that contains all its warts, they will have no intellectual resources to deal with it.
It is therefore a very poor law as it destroys the work of creative people and allows robots to rule our thoughts. Not to mention that it defeats free speech, automatically.
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