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Additionally, Australia and New Zealand (lands which respect international copyright law) have ruled that region-coding has no legal basis.

Australia has made no such ruling. The ACCC is investigating the practise of region-coding and they will be making recommendations to federal parliament "soon". The ACCC itself does not make legal rulings.

http://www.accc.gov.au/

http://australianit.news.com.au/common/storyPage/0 ,3811,1824803%5E442,00.html

Though given that the members of the ACCC are clued in (legally speaking) and that they seem to think DVD region-encoding is a violation of the Trade Practises Act, there's a damn good chance this will go to court and there will be a ruling in the consumer's favour.

http://australianit.news.com.au/common/storyPage/0 ,3811,2085164%5E442,00.html

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/2001/06/06/ FFXHH7FZLNC.html

http://it.mycareer.com.au/breaking/2001/06/06/FFX7 G6FZLNC.html

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/telco/story/0,2000020 799,20227632,00.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/nat/newsnat-6j un2001-50.htm

http://www.whirlpool.net.au

http://www.a1h.com

Check out this report in The Australian IT.

Actually it is not illegal (in Australia) to modify a DVD player to make it multi region, it is only illegal if you modify it so that it will play pirated discs. This is similar to the situation with chipping Playstations. The Australian IT has a more in depth article on this issue and also takes a look at DVD regions from the publishers side.

Go here
or:
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,2003 23 1%255E1702,00.html

With things like this going on in India, I'd say drastic measures are called for indeed.

-carl

That would be worth about $1.295 million U.S., at today's rate. At least somebody's getting some employment out of this. Kind of like Lawyers Find Profit in Dot-Com Disasters.

The single most dangerous thing you can do in politics is shut off information from people who don't agree with you. - Molly Ivins

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (the ACCC) is investigating this very point. The article here has some interesting quotes about the issue, particularly by the local Warner Home Video MD Mr Marc Gareton. Of particular interest:

"There are a lot of reasons why movies can't be released in cinemas all round the world on the same date - mainly the cost of film prints and marketing."

"If it's available on DVD, I'd be surprised if people would go to the movie."

This guy has a seriously skewed view of the world, but then, that appears to be true of all these MPAA/RIAA types. I've always been annoyed at having to wait 6+ months to get movies, games, etc. released down under when I can order them over the net when they're released in the US.

I always thought the localisations required (dubbing, subtitling, censorship requirements, etc.) would have been the major cause for delays, but no, apparently it's just the costs of marketing and printing film. At the prices we pay down here, I think they can afford to cut a few extra copies and do a simultaneous release.

Beermat Software make a windows version of this game called Dope Wars that features a World ranking ladder for all you aspiring drug dealers.

You can even join or create your own drug cartel (free registration req.)

IIRC each game score generates a unique number key, that when submitted to their site, is translated back to your score and entered into the ranking table. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Still, I prefer the older non-ranking dos versions or for some added depth try Pimp Wyld

It must be because America is so religious. 70% of Americans go to Church once a week, compared to 2.5% of Britains. This almost wholly explains the different attitudes in each country towards self defense, rehabillitation and crime deterrance. It is Old Testament values and paranoia (America) versus modern rationalism (Britain).

All that so called rationalism (and all those cameras and gun control) has produced the second most crime-ridden nations in the world. So much for your Socialist/Fascist utopia.

In hindsight we probably shouldn't have rescued the UK from Hitler in the first place, since it turned out to be a waste of time. You're voluntarily turning your country into a modern day Nazi Germany.

From the article:

We have a huge fear of crime and we have no totalitarian past like almost all the other countries in Europe."

Well that seems about to change. The UK seems hell bent on proving Orwell right, although he was off by a few years.

I'm not questioning your choice of where to live, I was questioning your assertion that Europe is more free than the US.

As far as traveling and seeing the world goes, I was talking about Europe and you mention ONE COUNTRY you have been to in Europe.

Correction: I mentioned ONE COUNTRY where I lived for two years, there's a big difference between playing tourist hopping through Europa for a couple of weeks and living there. But that's beside the point, I was not trying to impress you with the number of countries I've visited/lived in. I mentioned that merely to prevent someone from thinking I was sitting here in the US claiming that it's the greatest place to live without ever having traveled outside of the US borders.

As far as Japan goes, it's not just damn expensive, it's unbelievably expensive, and crowded. Thailand was much more enjoyable, the people were much friendlier.

Well, I think it's irresponsible NOT to put up cameras to allow criminals to be more easily identified and caught.

The problem comes down to where do you draw the line? You think it's irresponsible to follow the UK's lead and place cameras everywhere in public. What about the next person who that thinks it's irresponsible to give criminals legal representation? Or that there should be safeguards against unreasonable search and seizure? What about the FBI's carnivore? Wouldn't it be irresponsible to not hang one of those boxes off every isp so that we can catch all those child pornographers and terrorists out there? Where does it end? Nearly any draconian act can be justified in the name of "reducing crime."

It has to be a balancing act between reasonable methods of crime control and the citizens rights. To me, hanging that many cameras in public areas in order to catch a few more criminals, does not justify the gross violation of the rest of the citizenry.

One more thing, all those cameras don't seem to be working. According to the International Crime Victims Survey, Australia and the UK suffer the most violent crimes. There's an article about it

here

and here

Now if I wanted to play games with numbers I could probably cook something up that would show (falsely) crime had been increasing along with the number of cameras that go up in public places. But I don't play those kind of games, we have enough nutcases doing that here already.

Huh? the m505 is due to be released next week.

Wanna see what it looks like?

Sony are also planning on releasing a new Clie in Japan today (no more information available yet)

It was also announced that the Handspring range will go on sale in Australia this week. They're being distributed & supported by Vodafone. Prices range from AUD$349 - AUD$1043, the Edge will cost AUD$899. There was an article in yesterdays's AustralianIT and there's a small article over at cnet today.

Sorry - the URL didn't resolve. Here it is again: Digital copyright 'window dressing'. Slashdot people - I reckon this is worth adding to the intro.

I realise that this posting is kind of old now, but this is important. A lot of the questions that have been asked about chipping for imported games or back-up copies can be answered in Australian IT's follow-up article Digital copyright 'window dressing'. Apparently it is legal to chip for playing imported games - as long as the chip is not also capable of playing copied games. (There are different types of chips). Also, regards the comment about how they enforce it - they are going after the commercial operators not the consumers. It is not illegal to use a chipped machine, so if you've already got it done it's okay.

Even better (for us Aussies) is the fact that Handspring will now be in Australia. Read this article from Australian IT.

In Sydney, there are three major newspapers (and their Sunday offsprings) - the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph and The Australian.
I read the SMH daily (which would have to be the biggest one in Sydney), and all of the usual columnists publish their email addresses at the end of their columns... I think this makes the gap between journalists and the public much narrower, and although I'm sure they receive plenty of really crap email every day, it means that they are more approachable.
Maybe the NY Times has a different strategy behind their newsplan - to keep that gap and be like an "ultimate news source" or something. *shrug* I think that they're just behind the times :-)

In Sydney, there are three major newspapers (and their Sunday offsprings) - the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph and The Australian.
I read the SMH daily (which would have to be the biggest one in Sydney), and all of the usual columnists publish their email addresses at the end of their columns... I think this makes the gap between journalists and the public much narrower, and although I'm sure they receive plenty of really crap email every day, it means that they are more approachable.
Maybe the NY Times has a different strategy behind their newsplan - to keep that gap and be like an "ultimate news source" or something. *shrug* I think that they're just behind the times :-)

• The ABC web site has a transcript of the story on Thursday's 7.30 report.
• The Australian's web site also has an article on the issue. The Australian is Australia's national newspaper.

• The ABC web site has a transcript of the story on Thursday's 7.30 report.
• The Australian's web site also has an article on the issue. The Australian is Australia's national newspaper.

http://technology.news.com.au/news/4 262081.htm

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