VidAngel, the Provo-based entertainment filtering and streaming company, has launched a new service to remove offensive content on Amazon and Netflix, opening a new front in its long-running battle over the sanitizing of Hollywood movies.
The company was launched in 2014 with the goal of making mainstream movies more accessible to faith-based audiences. The original service used DVD copies of Hollywood releases to filter out language and nudity. But in December, a federal judge ordered VidAngel to shut down at the request of Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., which have argued that the unauthorized service violates their copyrights.
VidAngel is still fighting that battle in federal appeals court. But in the meantime, it is also launching its new service to allow subscribers to watch “clean” content on Netflix, Amazon and HBO Go.
“This announcement is the culmination of something we’ve wanted to do for a long time,” said Neal Harmon, VidAngel’s CEO. “People have been without filtering services for months, and we’re launching this service because our customers are asking for it.”
According to VidAngel, the company had about a million users at the time it was shut down. The company will now seek to sign up its customers to the new service. In a promotional video, the company compares its service to a parent fast-forwarding to prevent their kids from seeing foul language, violence or sexual material.
“We don’t force directors to change their scenes,” the narrator says. “We just let families mute and skip those scenes like they would with a remote. A remote isn’t censorship. It’s choice.”
Harmon and his chief legal counsel, David Quinto, contend that the new service resolves the copyright concerns raised by the studios. The studios alleged that VidAngel’s old service competed unfairly with licensed streaming services. VidAngel was streaming movies that were available on DVD but not on Netflix.
To use the new service, which will cost $7.99 per month, subscribers must first have a valid subscription to one of the major streaming services. Quinto says this will be a net benefit to both the studios and the streaming services.
“It removes all the economic harms that Disney claimed it was suffering as a result of our prior service,” Quinto said. “There would be no economic reason for the streaming services to complain. Vid- Angel would be driving more traffic to them.”
VidAngel is approaching its new strategy carefully. The company was held in contempt and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine in January for continuing to operate its old service for two weeks after an injunction was issued ordering it to shut down. VidAngel intends to go to federal court and seek a determination that the new service does not violate the terms of the injunction. Until then, it will not offer any content owned by the plaintiff studios.