Red Tint Lawsuit Follow-up

posted on by Christopher Macdonald
Disney presents its defensive arguments

On July 24th Walt Disney Japan presented their defense in the Spirited Away "red tint" lawsuit. According to the Daily Mainichi, Disney insists that it made no errors in the production of the DVD.

"The defense only produced the DVD disks from the DVD master. We have no say in color or tone. Therefore we have no responsibility in this matter." "The staff took it into consideration that the color temperature of TV sets made in Japan was different from that of TV sets overseas before they actually tuned the color. So it is inadequate at the court to argue about whether the tone is correct or not."

Walt Disney quoted Studio Ghiblie's explanation of the issue in their defense. Referring to the plaintiffs' statement that the "correct" color balance of the trailer proves that there is an error with the rest of the DVD, "The trailer is only an extra. The tone of the movie part [of the DVD] is best for viewing the movie in DVD format." "The color temperature of domestic TV sets is 9300K (degrees Kelvin), while the master data was produced on 5500K monitors (Movie projector are also 5500K). [Without the corrections] 9300K TV's display the image with a slight white tint in comparison to theater projections. Ghibli tuned the color temperature for 9300K TV sets."

Tetsuo Otani, lawyer and plaintiff, commented "Disney insists it bears no responsibility because it only manufactured and sold the DVDs. Yet I think Disney has a responsibility to each consumer since it was Disney that sold to them." "The U.S. version has less red tint. The defense should explain why. Disney insists that Studio Ghibli tuned the color so that Chihiro's feelings would be better portrayed, but that cannot satisfy us because it does not explain why the tint on the DVD is different from that seen in theaters."

This article has a follow-up: Spirited Away DVD Lawsuit Settled (2004-09-13 12:38)
follow-up of More on Red Tint Lawsuit
discuss this in the forum (25 posts) |
bookmark/share with:

News homepage / archives