Gibson Takes On Illegal Editors

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Mel Gibson, who may or may not be grooming himself to play Sadam Hussien, has become the champion of artistic integrity. Whoda thunkit?

Gibson's Icon Productions is suing a Utah based company called CleanFlicks. These guy get a hold of copyrighted films, edit out "all the dirty parts", and then illegally resell them without the filmmakers' permissions. They've recently been making a pretty penny on an edited version of The Passion Of The Christ, and Mel simply could not let that pass. Apparantly CleanFlicks has already edited over 900 films in the past six years, and my question is, HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN? How have these guys been in business since the end of the last millenium and nobody's shut them down yet? That just seems totally ridiculous to me.

Apparantly the guy who runs CleanFlicks, Ray Lines, is rebutting Gibson with the argument that there's nothing wrong with him editing down Passion because Gibson himself recently re-released a director's cut of the film that edited out some of the more violent bits. Basically Lines is using the "I'm rubber and you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!" argument. That strategy doesn't really hold water for a number of reasons, cheif among them the fact that it's Gibson's movie and he has the right to do whatever the hell he wants with it, whereas Lines has the right to watch it in his living room and that's about it. Oh yeah, he also has the right to popcorn.

What an asshole.