RCA has announced that it will be making a DVD player incorporating ClearPlay's technology to filter sex, violence, and bad language out of DVDs. Until now, ClearPlay has been available only as software that sanitizes DVDs played on a computer.
ClearPlay, of course, is a co-defendant in the Clean Flicks case, in which the Directors' Guild of America is suing various makers of "cleaned" DVDs and manufacturers of software to skip offensive scenes. But ClearPlay is the first to see its technology embedded in mass-market consumer hardware.
Two pieces of this story jump out as especially newsworthy. First, thanks to Janet Jackson, general public sentiment is probably more favorable to ClearPlay and its co-defendants than it was when the lawsuit was filed in late 2002. Arguing against a product that allows parents to control what their children see is even more of an uphill rhetorical battle than it was before.
And second, not only RCA, but also major retailers -- Wal-Mart and Kmart -- are confident enough in the legality of the players that they're going ahead with their plans in the face of Hollywood's protests. In that sense, the move is both a vote on the strength of the case and as a public slap in the face to the DGA.