9 Jun – Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has just launched its Clean Version initiative, which will allow viewers to screen edited family friendly versions of over two dozen Sony movies. This means that the movies have been made "free from certain mature content" such as violence, profanity and sexuality. Yahoo Movies reported that the broadcast TV or airline versions of these movies will be made available with no additional charges with every purchase of the theatrical versions on iTunes, VUDU and FandangoNOW. Some of the edited films currently available are all five current "Spider-Man" movies of this century, "Goosebumps", "White House Down", "Pixels", "Ghostbusters" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". For years, multiple third-party services that have sought to censor and cut out mature content from Hollywood movies have been made a subject of controversy. Not only did the fans of the movies object, but the movies' producers saw it as unauthorised editing of copyrighted works unsanctioned by the artists who made them
Some well-known third-party services that offer clean versions of movies are ClearPlay and VidAngel, both are based in Utah and both have been a matter of ongoing controversy. ClearPlay has been operating in accordance with the Family Movie Act 2015 which allows them to use technology to filter certain elements out of movies. However, in February, they stopped releasing their edited movies through Google Play, citing a "technical issue" that continued for months. On the other hand, VidAngel is currently in a legal battle with Disney, Lucasfilm, Fox and Warner Bros. after the service received a court order to stop all operations at the request of the studios which all complained that the service was pirating their content. As for Sony's new Clean Version initiative, some people have already voiced their objection. One such person is actor Seth Rogen, who took to Twitter asking Sony to "please don't do this to our movies". Rogen has been in many R-rated comedies, his last movie with Sony being 2016's R-rated "Sausage Party". Though, Rogen may not get to have any say in the matter since – unlike with the case of VidAngel – Sony is the production company that created the movies so they have the right to edit and scrub it clean.