Dear Hollywood: Keep your hands off my DVDs

Wish you could watch major films at home without being offended by words you wouldn't use in your own home, and worrying whether your children are seeing things they shouldn't?

Think you should have the right to view the movies you own (or rent) the way you--and not the content's creators--wish?

IN EITHER CASE, you should know about a company that hopes to market a special DVD player that will automatically skip over violent and sexually explicit scenes and mute the bad language that is so prevalent in Hollywood blockbusters

Here's the problem: Hollywood is suing to keep this DVD player off the market. The major studios and the Directors Guild of America are essentially saying that, when you buy a DVD, you must watch it exactly the way it was created--or not watch it at all.

The company that's created this DVD technology, ClearPlay, is one of a dozen or so businesses that, in one way or another, offer cleaned-up versions of PG- and R-rated movies. Others, such as CleanFlicks, rent and sell DVDs and videotapes that have been physically edited to exclude objectionable content