VidAngel, a Provo, Utah-based streaming platform that edits content out of films and TV shows, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, its CEO announced yesterday, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune. For more than a year, the company has been locked in a legal battle with movie studios that said VidAngel sold altered versions of original content without paying royalties. Through the platform, users watching films and TV series could filter out language, nudity, violence or other content they consider objectionable. The movie studios argued that VidAngel streamed and altered the studios’ content without permission and didn’t pay for movie and television rights. In December, a federal judge in California said that until the lawsuit is resolved, the company must stop operations regarding movies from Disney Enterprises Inc., Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the movie studios in August. In June, the company altered its service and launched a new platform. The company originally purchased and stored DVD and Blu-ray copies of films it offered. Users virtually “bought” the programs, filtered out content they found objectionable and then “sold” the program back to VidAngel for credit on the site.
