I've long been a fan of annotating works. I think it is a wonderful thing if people want to add commentary and/or criticism to another work. Fan or expert commentaries for DVDs, for example, could be a great source of additional value for DVDs. Imagine critic Roger Ebert providing commentaries for any DVD he wants.

That is why I've written a great deal about the Clean Flicks case, in which Hollywood is attempting to make annotations illegal. You can read some of my past stuff on Clean Flicks on LawMeme. Start with these two articles and follow the links: Hollywood Industry Mag Unconvinced by DGA Position and The Hypocrisies of the Writers Guild of America, West.

Therefore, I am quite excited by a report in the SF Gate that two major retailers, Wal-Mart and K-Mart, will soon be selling a DVD player that has some annotation capabilities (DVD player to edit movies: Technology allows viewer to bypass offensive content). Now, unfortunately, these players only allow one to skip existing content, although you might be able to do some pretty interesting stuff with that *cough*PhantomEdit*cough*. Still, this is annotation. You may not be in favor of removing offensive content in movies, but if Hollywood can stop this, they can stop people from adding commentaries, or remixing content in really creative ways.

Also, note that this avoidance of offensive content is being done by the consumer and not the government. One would think the FCC and DOJ would be very supportive of the defendants in the Clean Flicks case, being as it would save them all that trouble of acting as censors and all.

via JD Lasica