ALBERTSON'S OFFERS CUT VERSIONS OF R FILMS

BY SHERRI C. GOODMAN / July 10, 2002
The Salt Lake Tribune

Interested in renting the "Black Hawk Down" movie video? Customers at the 46 Albertson's stores in Utah now have a choice: the studio's original R-rated war film or an "E-rated" version -- E for edited -- with 135 cuts to remove strong language and nudity.

The Boise, Idaho-based grocery store chain has agreed to a short-term test program in Utah to gauge the popularity of edited new-release videos in its stores' rental sections.

"Based on that test period, we'll determine whether or not to continue offering the product in the video rental section and whether or not to expand the program nationwide," Albertson's spokeswoman Jeannette Duwe said. "We felt there was a demand for this type of product, and we needed to take a closer look at it," she said.

The Utah stores also are carrying unedited versions of new-release movies on VHS and DVD. Duwe did not know when the trial period, which started in late June, will end.

Video II, a Sandy-based company that distributes rental videos to 1,000 of Albertson's 2,300 stores nationwide, proposed the trial program in Utah and is editing the movies itself. Glen Dickman, president of the 18-year-old company, said he has tried for 15 years to get edited copies of movies from the studios, but they turned him down. "So we decided we'd go ahead and offer edited titles that we [edited] ourselves," he said. Video II now has 11 cleaned-up flicks including "Gosford Park," "Spy Game," "The Heist" and "My Life as a House." As other
new releases come out, they will be edited and made available in Albertson's stores in the state, he said.

Duwe said it is premature to say whether the program has been a success, but Albertson's has "had quite a bit of positive response in our stores to the videos. The negative has yet to be heard."

Video II is just one of several Utah companies that have bought original videos from studios, sliced them up, and then rented or sold the sanitized copies. Duwe and Dickman said video rental stores that already offer edited versions of movies have opened stores near some Albertson's locations. "There is certainly a market for this in Utah," Duwe said. "We're simply
adding a product some of our [video rental] competitors are offering."

The issue of cleaned-up videos garnered national attention in 1998 when an American Fork shop, Sunrise Video, cut racy scenes out of the then-newly released "Titanic," and angered studio officials who claimed it was copyright infringement. But the legal issue remains untested in Utah.

Dickman talked with his lawyers before deciding that editing the videos was a "risk worth taking." "We feel there's a good chance that we have the right because we purchased the movie, we own it, so we can take out profanity and nudity," he said. Albertson's was not so sure, he said, and required Video II to agree in writing to bear full legal responsibility if the studios put up a fight. Dickman has already received one call from a studio saying it planned to issue a cease-and-desist order to require Video II to stop editing its movies. "I guess all the studios are looking at it pretty closely," he said.