Those familiar with VidAngel’s filtered-video streaming service may already be aware of the litigation the company has endured. It has provided services for families who wanted content they found objectionable removed from movies they watched in private. People could choose to remove elements they considered objectionable — such as language, violence, nudity, and sex acts, all thanks to VidAngel’s service.

Four studios, led by Disney, objected to this content filtering and sued VidAngel. The studios got a preliminary injunction that forced VidAngel to suspend its DVD-based service. VidAngel has, however, announced its development of a new platform, whose goal is to work in conjunction with streaming companies and surmount legal obstacles.

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VidAngel’s CEO, Neal Harmon, spoke with LifeZette about his company’s new product and filtering’s future.

Question (LifeZette): Tell us about your new announcement.
Answer (Neal Harmon): Our newest filtering platform works with Netflix, Amazon and HBO. Our service now works directly with our customers’ choice of the compatible streaming providers. It’s essentially the same technology but on a different platform.

Q: Given that the new system is geared to streaming, is it available across different devices?
A: Absolutely. It already works on several of the most popular platforms, and our customers will soon be able to use our service on any device they use to watch streamed content. Once they sign up with a licensed streaming service, we can filter their selections on iOS, Android, Roku, and desktop applications.

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Q: It sounds like your service sits directly on top of the streaming providers.
A: Yes, when customers sign up for VidAngel’s service, they enter their credentials to their chosen licensed streaming provider. Then they select a movie on our platform and just choose the filtering options they want, as they did using our prior technology. The difference, though, is that the content they watch comes from a stream, as opposed to a DVD. The language they don’t want to hear and scenes they don’t want to see are omitted from the stream they receive. It is as close to a true filter as you can get, digitally.

“It is as close to a true filter as you can get, digitally.”

Q: VidAngel is already enduring challenges in court based on its prior filtering service. Do you anticipate any further challenges? (A joint lawsuit was brought last year by Disney, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Lucasfilm.)
A: I can say there shouldn’t be a legal problem, but given the past lawsuits I would expect some form of challenge, even though this new streaming model is something the studios said would be acceptable before they realized we could achieve it. But they are now asking to be allowed a number of months to study our new system, in an obvious attempt to delay VidAngel from filtering their content. They want to drag the procedure out to keep the preliminary injunction in place as long as possible.

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Q: Yet the studios opposing the service have said that streaming is an acceptable format, isn’t that correct?
A: Yes, in past court arguments they have said streaming would be acceptable, but that what we were doing with decryption of DVDs was what they opposed. So following the injunction six months ago, we began to focus entirely on a workable format with streaming. This should be an acceptable solution, then, based on their own arguments, and their past actions. (go to page 2 to continue reading)[lz_pagination]