Salt Lake City, Feb. 3, 2003 — ClearPlay, which provides family-oriented software filters for watching movies on genuine, studio-authorized DVDs, has issued the following response to the most recent legal replies filed last month by the Directors Guild of America and on Friday by eight of the most powerful Hollywood motion picture studios.

"Hollywood is clearly trying to eliminate any effective parental controls," said Bill Aho, CEO of ClearPlay Inc. "But even more outrageous, the studios now indicate that consumers themselves are violating copyright law when they use ClearPlay to mute and skip the playback of movies on DVDs that they have lawfully bought or rented. We and many others find the studio’s position overreaching, to say the least."

According to ClearPlay attorney Andrew Bridges, Friday’s filing by the eight movie studios involved in this legal battle showed that they are taking what he called "an extremely aggressive stance against not only the technologies that consumers want, but also against the consumers themselves, even when they are playing DVDs they have lawfully purchased."

"Basically, the studios are insisting that ClearPlay and consumers are creating altered copies of movies, a fact anyone familiar with the products knows to be false," said Bridges. "At the same time, the studios and directors also feign ignorance of many basic facts that they should have known before filing their claims. For example, they say they don’t even know whether a consumer needs to have a DVD in order to use ClearPlay Filters."

On the directors side, Bridges noted that the DGA was relying on a far-fetched consumer protection argument. "The directors’ position is that consumers need to be protected from their own choices. The directors evidently believe that consumers, having bought the genuine movie DVD, having acquired the ClearPlay software, and having activated the ClearPlay Filter, won’t realize that they are enjoying a ClearPlay experience of the movie. That argument defies belief."

While named in the lawsuit along with 14 other defendants, ClearPlay’s technology is different from companies that produce edited versions of movies. ClearPlay does not copy, market or resell tapes or DVDs. ClearPlay also does not add any content to mask or overlay scenes in films. Rather, the company’s software is incorporated into DVD players or downloaded to a PC and allows families to view a movie in the home while skipping or muting over graphic violence, profanity or explicit sex.

"Maybe in Hollywood people sue each other all the time, and they don’t bother to do their homework before launching a lawsuit," said Aho. "In the Heartland, however, it’s a big deal to be sued, and people and companies are genuinely damaged by irresponsible and meritless legal actions."

ClearPlay offers its DVD-ROM software to consumers currently via its Web site, www.clearplay.com, and through various affiliates doing business across the U.S. as well as internationally. The company offers filters for more than 300 popular movie titles.