Slashdot Mirror
Regulator Challenges DVD Zoning
tahpot writes "The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) is about to challenge the DVD regional zoning system. The ACCC claim that the the system may breach the Australian Trade Practices Act. The ACCC claim that the zoning system prevents small film companies from distributing their movies around the world, with their sales generally too small to justify catering for region four. This reduces competition in the advantage of US studios." They've been thinking about this challenge for a while. Who knows if anything will come of it, but it can hardly hurt.
- From the DVD FAQ
> The story doesn't even mention region-free DVDs. The story's author seems to be as clueless as you.
Nope. The problem pointed by the article is not the distribution of australian movie.
It is the artificial scarcity of zone 4 movies. Little non-australian studio will not release zone 4 DVDs, and australian consumer is prohibited of buying its DVDs from europe or US.
The sole avalaible DVDs are either australian DVDs, big hollywood productions and zone free DVDs. Choice of australian consumer is 6 or 7 times smaller than choice of US consumer. DVDs prices are 20% higher.
You should change your name to clueless_spork.
Cheers,
--fred
France adopted SECAM, which is similar to PAL but uses Frequency Modulation rather than Amplitude Modulation for the color signal.
As long as you use a powerful enough lens, even
pornography made with extrememly small-anatomy
actors (France, Vietnam, China, Japan, Finland,
etc.) look fine on the screen.
The little guys aren't really left out.
The problem was the new chroma harmonics caused audio distortion in old BW tv sets and since
you couldn't change old BW tv sets, so they had to change the chroma harmonics...
The prototype proposal was designed to have 227.5 cycles/line, and they carefully bandlimited the
I/Q modulation to be lopsized to direct most of the energy away from the audio, but it turned
out there was still too much interference between audio at 4.5MHz and chroma harmonics.
Panic ensued... The "quick" fix was to slightly shift the chroma subcarrier frequency so that
the 4.5MHz audio fit between the chroma harmonics. Since tvs have phase locked loops,
the old tv sets would still sync to the "tweaked" line rate. This was deemed "compatible" color tv.
Since there were always 525 lines, the frame rate slightly shifted to 29.97 from 30 (or 59.94
from 60 fields/sec)
And now you know the rest of the story...
There are region free DVDs. In fact it costs the producers of films more to have there work encoded for region & macrovision.
What's so sad about the massive politicized anti-region-encoding movement, is that VHS tapes are also "region encoded", in that there are at least two entirely incompatible standards for encoding the video signal (NTSC and PAL) which are used throughout the world
Two responses:
(1) All VHS players available in Australia except for the very cheapest and nastiest can play back both PAL and NTSC. Compared to the situation where, admittedly, many DVD players can do multiple regions with a cheat code or hack, but the DVD vendors are trying to outlaw that. Nobody ever tried to outlaw a VHS player that could play NTSC and PAL.
(2) PAL/NTSC is a technical distinction. The daft Americans use a crappy technical standard, the rest of the world uses a superior one. It just happened that way. Whereas DVD regions are a deliberate and malicious incompatibility with no purpose other than maximising the profits of the DVD vendors at the expense of the consumers.
As a sort of a side question, can one legally purchase a multi-region DVD player in Canada? A good one? If so, where or how? It seems no manufacturer is willing to sell one here, and I don't want to order one from Britain or someplace only to have it confiscated at the border.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Well, any good mod job these days has no problems with RCE (the name of the 'feature' you describe). Plus, I believe natively region-free players (new ones) use the same method as mods to fool the DVD, that is they read what region the disc is for and set themselves for that zone (the RCE discs say they're region 0, and if the player goes along with it they refuse to play). It's all pretty sleazy, done mostly because it can be done.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Russell Crowe is a New Zealander.
Oh waaaaah! Well, I can't work as a programmer for two or more jobs in different places at once either, so I want a law to prohibit other places from filling "my" programming job until I decide to come... and to not fill it even if I never come.
Why in the FUCK should the law be used to coddle emmasculated businesses that can't do their job right?
(due to the high production cost of the film rolls, and the translation/dubbing/texting involved).
(1) If they're not dubbed/translated, then it's not a problem because those people can't watch your movie anyway, right?
(2) As for costs? Pay up or shut up. No one cuts me a break on paying simultaneously on auto insurance for my 3 cars even thought I can only drive one car at a time.
Although my player is region-hacked, so it makes little difference to me, I have quite by chance accumulated quite a few region 0 DVDs.
The US Criterion Edition version of Brazil is region 0.
The Hong Kong version of Naked Killer (what a film!) is region 0 (and I believe a lot of Hong Kong Cat. 3 movies are released as R0 DVDs).
UK Playstation World Magazine has a monthly DVD video coverdisk, which is region 0.
Also, check the documentary shelf in your local DVD shop: most documentary DVDs seem to be R0, as are the DVDs they sell in tourist traps (for example the Grand Canyon DVDs -- it makes sense if you're selling to people from all over the world; you sometimes PAL VHS tapes in the gift shops of American tourist traps)
--
If a small film maker wishes a DVD to have worldwide distribution, then the zoning system doesn't prevent that at all. They can simply make a zoneless disc. They are, after all, a small film maker, and hence the arguments that the larger studios use to justify zoning don't apply. Of course, zoning is inherently evil anyway, but that's another matter. Using bogus logic is not the way to have it wiped from the face of the planet, and I'd expect a court to take the same view...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Is Australia signatory to any international treaties that automatically strike down laws that expropriate multinational corporations? If so, would not such treaties overrule any ACCC decision on zoning that threatens the studios?
If you are fluent enough in english to fully enjoy all movies in english, can't you just get region 1 dvd's and players only?
Isn't that a little unfair to people who don't want to/can't understand english well?
Would it be practical to get a region 1 player/dvds in say Peru? I realize this is not ligit according to the MPAA, but aren't laws supposed to be based on moral and practical precident, not made to shape it? Do English speakers enjoy an unfair advantage?
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
There's no such thing as region 0. The regions are numbered from 1 to 8 and each disc stores a flag for each region indicating whether it is allowed to be played in that region. Region-free discs have all these flags set (or possibly all but the reserved one).
Yep, the hi-fi shop just along the road from here has mostly multi-region players.i d= 13&sid=df2e280e2.123456
http://www.richersounds.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?
(Lists about 30 multi-region, and five Region 2 (one of which has a multi-region upgrade disk advertised too).
I don't know how well they all work with RCE, and having a significant market where DVD players legally have to multi-region will certainly help the situation for everyone (well everyone except the MPAA).
--
rant
that would IMO, only apply if YOU hacked the player. If you purchase a player with the ability to switch zones there is NO attempt to circumvent the (chuckle) encryption of the DVD. As an avid Anime fan in the US, a ZONE-FREE player causes many problems, you want zone "switchable" player. :)
That way the player supplies what ever the DVD 'wants' to see
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Have you got a reference for that? I live in New Zealand, and I wasn't aware of this. It's certainly the norm for DVD players to get modified to play any region's discs when they're sold, though.
It's interesting to look at Amazon's top 10 selling DVDs in NZ and see that they're all region 1. It's the same for Australia as well. I guess if you wanted non-region 1 DVDs, you wouldn't shop at Amazon, though.
-- AIIEE! Universe corrupt - halted.
Crowe was born in New Zealand, but has lived in Australia since he was a child. He currently lives in Australia with his cows, as readers of womens magazines should all know.
--
--
enterfornone - logging in for a change
> in fact I would think they'd be like mosquitos
> picking at a Moose or something similar.
Actually, in Alaska, the mosquitos _do_ kill moose. You just need enough hungry (upset) mosquitos (voters).
Robert
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Now, if only somebody in government, or even the bureauracy, would work out that retaining copyright protection over Steamboat Willie and Rhapsody In Blue is equally harmful, we'd really be getting somewhere . . .
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I believe that New Zealand is one place. It's even said (on OpenDVD.org) that there seems to be a clause in the WTO treaties that makes these sorts of things illegal. I'm not sure exactly what New Zealand does, perhaps they made it illegal to import or sell any DVD player that honors region codes.
It's not hard to see why the ACCC would find this in violation of Australian consumer protection law. When you look at DVD region coding carefully, you find it's nothing more or less than an attempt by the MPAA to perform price fixing on a global scale. Why not all nations are up in arms against this yet is testimony to the power of these movie studios.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Wow who would've thought the Aussie govt would actually come out on the side of the CMITS for once?
:(
Of course the ACCC is generally a hot-air commision. The boss guy likes to hog the limelight by making bold condemnations of various anti-competetive scams but then it generally all fizzles out to nothing once the cameras are turned off
Hmm. I have a standard, off-the-shelve, mass market video player, that can play NTSC and PAL video tapes, and my TV can switch between the two.
I also have a multi-region DVD player, advertised and bought as such, and have equal amounts of region 1 and 2 discs in my collection. Although I do tend to get the region 1s from Amazon.
Effectively, regionisation has caused me very little inconvenience, and actually has the benefit that I now get to choose which of multiple versions of a film I buy.
~Cederic (in the UK)
ps: are you the Vaxman that used to run geno?
http://www.scan.co.uk/ sell something they describe as "Scan SC-2000 Multiregion/PAL/NTSC/MP3 playback/Dolby/dts out"
I own one, I know other people with one. They work superbly, take discs from region 1 and 2 with no problems (haven't tried other regions yet, but suspect so), can be upgraded using a firmware disc and cost just £165 + postage.
As I mentioned elsewhere, I have equal numbers of region 1 and 2 discs - being able to pick and choose which release of a film to buy makes it much more worthwhile..
~Cederic
That's like buying a book to discover that it only opens within certain regions of the country.
Apart from being a stupid concept its just penalizing the mobile.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
In addition, I have seen threatening looking signs posted in shops that sell region 4 DVDs claiming that it is illegal to import region 1 DVDs. This is false. Placing such a sign in your store is very likely illegal under the same Trade Practices Act (which amongst other things, makes it illegal to tell lies in advertising). It is easy to buy region 1 DVDs over the internet from the US or the UK, and I do this all the time.
The ACCC has a very fine record of standing up for consumer rights. However its job is to enforce the law. I have far less confidence in the government itself, which gets to make the law. My understanding is that negotiations are presently going on with international copyright bodies to give us a DMCA like law in Australia, which might even make modifying a DVD player to be region free illegal under anti-circumvention provisions. I hope not, but it could happen. Michael.
I've noticed that Region 2 DVDs (aside from being PAL) include many subtitles, and frequently more audio tracks. I have been quite upset by many of the region 1 DVDs I get from NetFlix because they don't have English subtitles, or even closed captioning. (yes, I turn on English subtitles even when the language is English. You'd be surprised how much more you can get out of a film this way.)
It's unfortunate that even with legal threats from countries like Australia, nothing will be done about region encoding.
I can just hope that compression gets better and pipes get fatter so I can move to a different way of getting my moves. (too bad so many DivX;-) users out there strip out all but the tracks they want. hopefully that will change too.)
Of course, once all the Australian electronics shops sell multi-region players, those players will catch on elsewhere...
Contrary to the US it ins't illegal to sell region-code free players or modification kits in most of Europe.
It is possible to buy a regioncode free players from most larger shops here in the Netherlands.
For instance, mediamarkt which has shops in four large cities sells four models of DVD players which can play all regioncode DVD's.
Says it all.
If you look with google for regionhacks you get lot's of sites with ways to play all regiondisks on your DVD player.
When I bought my DVD-player the first thing I did before buying it was to look how easy it was to make it play all regioncode disks.
Okay, now I know why there is a preview button.
http://www.dvdscene.co.uk/regionhacks/
Sorry for the mistake.
"The ACCC claim that the zoning system prevents small film companies from distributing their movies around the world, with their sales generally too small to justify catering for region four."
Um, isn't that what region 0 is for?
There are region free discs out there, Lumivision's discs for example.
Good points. I don't think they are unsolvable. They just make for a more interesting challenge.
The censoring thing could well be something that prevents many movies from ever showing up there (just because of the process involved, not because they might get a bad rating). Smaller producers simply may not be able to deal with it.
If the movie producers went ahead and launched a world-wide campaign to promote a new movie, and the the Australian censors dragged their feet on the movie, or worse, nixed it due to rating, then the movie industry could then, in the last day or 2, add a notation "not available in Australia". It would put more pressure on the censors. It's not like there isn't time to do that; I just don't know if they do or don't do their thing quickly enough there in Oz.
Your DVD players may be more expensive as a result. There will be a gray market in reselling them back to other parts of the world if multi-region players aren't available there. And the power differences won't be a problem in most cases (I can transform to most any voltage, and most 50 Hz stuff works fine at 60 Hz, and a 60-to-50 UPS isn't that hard to build for those that don't).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Take DVD out of the picture for a moment, which is most of my point.
Sure, there is a cost to doing a world parallel release. I won't deny that. But now there is a cost to NOT doing so, and that cost is because the world is become less and less regionalized, especially with the Internet bringing it all closer together.
I'm saying this issue has to be solved by the motion picture industry. They have to balance their costs and they are encountering new costs in terms of market reductions that they don't even realize (because they are still clueless about the Internet).
Perhaps digital projection will be a solution here. I'm sure that will take a while before the theatres adopt it due to the high initial costs. But maybe by that time, the distribution will be via the Internet itself (hopefully, the MP industry will have their clues by then).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The NTSC color subcarrier actually overlaps the monochrome baseband signal. The design was done so that the harmonic sidebands of the quadrature modulated color subcarrier will have a minimum of mutual interference with the baseband harmonics, and the audio subcarrier which was fixed at a 4.5 MHz offset in the US. The color subcarrier was made to be exactly 63/88 times 5 MHz so it could be very tightly syncronized everywhere and still fit into all the constraints. There are 227.5 color subcarrier cycles per line, meaning the little bumps are offset 180 degrees in the next line, and less objectionable. The horizontal and vertical frequencies were then syncronized to the color subcarrier to control the artifacts.
Here is a starting point for more info.
For its time, the design was quite good, considering the requirement that the color system must work on existing monochrome TV receivers, and fit in the existing TV channel, which had a "lopsided" modulation sideband pattern. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. Europe (except France) later adopted a different and somewhere better system that solved yet another problem (phase shifting in color syncronization). South American retrofited the European PAL system into their 525 line 60 Hz TV system.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Hey Jack Valenti. I have a free and open clue for you. Release the damned movie at the same time in Australia. And everywhere else.
It's a global world now. Back in BTI (Before The Internet), releasing a movie a year late in Australia would have no major consequences. People there didn't carry on daily conversations about all the things they love with people elsewhere in the world. But today, the world has changed, and you, Jack Valenti, need to catch up. You need the above clue so seriously.
Every movie that is released late in any part of the world isn't just going to suffer from world wide DVD distributions; it's going to suffer from world wide talk, and plot spoliers. Once a movie is out for a few weeks in the US, everyone will be talking about the ending (be it fantastic or utterly stupid) in the chat rooms, on the web boards, and in inter-office and intra-office memos of all the people working in international business. But among the participants will be people who live in regions where the movie hasn't even been released, yet. DVD won't be the only thing that can gouge into your precious first release theatre ticket sales. The Internet will, and you can't stop it.
But you can work with it. By simply doing world parallel releases, where each movie produced is released simultaneously in theatres in every country, then you'll beat even the Internet talk that can diminish your sales. And then release the DVD version later with yet another world parallel release.
Of course there will be difficulties with arranging that. As you should know, the movie industry is still entrenched with old BTI distribution methodologies that make a world parallel release difficult and costly. So change it. It only takes good leadership to steer the motion picture industry back on course into the future. Do you have it in you? Prove it to me. Or will I be watching "The Rise and Fall of an Industry: Major Motion Pictures" 10 years from now?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Region-free seems to be one of the selling points of porn DVDs. The ones I have seen on the shelf have a "Region Free" notice displayed prominently on the front of the case.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Don't try to impose US law on the rest of the world :).
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Well, TV's might take their frame rate from your power line, but not around these parts! Frame rates are set at the local power line distribution frequency (e.g. 60 Hz in Bush country, Canada, and 50 Hz in Oz, NZ and UK) but not generated from the power source to minimize hum bars rolling through the picture (particularly on older TV sets).
"Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups" seen on someone's blog...
Nope, each print itself is about 6000$--this is from years ago, when I worked in a movie theatre, and had to carry the prints around--and the damn things are now where near 30,000$. That is the cost to get one produced, which is a whole different story.
Think mass production, or software: it's a lot of work to write a program, but every copy after that is just the media cost. so rolling out more copies of a film afer initial making it is still expensive, but nowhere near as terrible asyou would have people believe!
Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.
A week or two will pass. The ACCC will announce they've had a meeting with representatives from the major film distributors and now that they understand the purpose of zoning, they find no threat to consumers. They will not repeat the explanation given them by the studios. The issue will be forgotten. Some studio bank accounts show a slight "discretionary fund" drop in balance.
Because they count on many of those people going to the theatre and then buying the movie on DVD.
Not that I give a rat's ass... If they can't run their business well enough to give people incentive to view a movie in the theatre, then they don't require any protection imho.
It's not MY fault that they can't run their business very well.
They can either get the movie to theatres in Australia faster, delay DVD releases here, or suck it up and accept that their mistakes will cost them money. But when they look for laws to be passed, specifically to keep them from having to change their outdated business practices...
I personally don't feel bound to follow any law that a corp has paid for. That's not law, that's bribery and treason that we simply haven't punished yet. I'm not saying I'll break it in front of the police - that'd be like taunting a bully to his face, but I will work to circumvent the law and bring financial ruin to the companies that subverted the legal system I live in just to pad their pockets.
IMHO people have the right to TRY TO make a profit, not the right a profit. That's a *big* difference.
Here in Sweden you can both buy players that are region free to begin with (I believe at least Panasonic has a model like that.) or get it "decoded" for $50.
Sure, $50 is quite a lot of money for puching a few buttons on the remote. (Alternatively swapping flash chip.) But it works.
If the MPAA believe that region coding works they are only fooling themselves. It was a stupid idea to begin with and doomed to fail. (Sure they can try to sue everyone, but the courts in Europe seems to have a disposition to swatting the fingers of big American companies that tell them what to do.)
Or you can go to DVD Digest's region free guide and see if there is hacked firmware available for it.
I believe the full chant is something like:
Aussie, aussie, aussie!
Oi, Oi, Oi!
Aussie... Oi!
Aussie... Oi!
Aussie, aussie, aussie!
Oi, Oi, Oi!
Ahh... they should replace the lame arse Australian national anthem with that charming chant. Certainly get a lot more people singing it at the footy.
To bring this back on topic... nah stuff it... its not like I actually *use* my karma...
Dan
.sig?
In Australia (and, I presume, in other countries), movie distributors have been trying like mad to get legal recognition of the DVD regions. This would make it illegal to import non region 4 DVDs into Australia, and illegal to sell players modified to play non region 4 discs. At the very least, the distributors are colluding with each other to prevent the import of Region 1 discs, and sale of Region 1 players.
Region free isn't an option, as many region 4 players bork on region 0 marked discs. Don't ask me why. They just do.
This gives Fox, Sony, Columbia, etc, effective monopoly control over their respective parts of the DVD distribution market, and prevents the `little guy' from getting access to the Australian market. The Trade Practices Act bans this sort of behaviour; the ACCC is just making sure that distributors know this.
At this point, I've gotta be proud to be an Aussie.
Russ %-)
PS: as a side note, Russell Crowe is a New Zealander who just happens to have spent some time in Australia; Mel Gibson is an American who went to acting school in Australia, and most aussies are nothing like Paul Hogan. Given that we are in a australia + movie context, I just thought I should clear this up.
... and never, ever play leapfrog with a unicorn.
The various member nations haven't yet signed them into law, but in theory they have to at some point.
The directive has to be implemented within 18 months.
For those interested, an unofficial version of the final EU directive is available here
the MPAA should have the ability to enforce the CSS licenses and prevent the sale of region-free machines ("circumvention devices").
Not exactly. You could make an argument that the DVDCCA license is overbroad, since it bundles piracy protection with region coding and macrovision.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
I've heard that some twisted offspring of the MPAA are suing the companies that import region 1 DVD's though
I believe they just passed a law in France making import of non-region2 DVDs illegal.
MPAA offspring in Norway are suing DVD importers. The latest rumour is that they want to drag this issue in front of EFTA. (www.efta.int)
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
If the EU would follow the Australian example (which is not unthinkable)
The EU Directorate General for Competition is currently examining this issue. I don't have high hopes, though, since they are only examining price differences. i.e., they won't bother with first sale, fair use or the difference between private and commercial conduct.
See here and here
"In this regard, I should inform you that the Directorate-General for Competition is currently examining the issue of DVD regional coding, and in particular whether this causes significant price differences to occur between DVDs from different regions. If any price differences cannot be explained by differing tax régimes, production costs etc., but are instead facilitated by the regional coding system, it would be our intention to examine whether such a system was a violation of EC competition rules."
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
This isn't a regulator it's a consumer protection agency that is too a large degree free from the control of the Federal Government.
This is a distinction that must be observed.
Never believe in anything until it has been officially denied. -Otto von Bismarck
The ACCC has the full weight of Australian law to fine the movie studios (and also executives) per day per offence. In amounts large enought to shut down their piddling national offices.
God bless 'em
Never believe in anything until it has been officially denied. -Otto von Bismarck
And there's proof that people really do buy region free players cause:
1) On every ad for DVD players I've seen here in Sweden they have "region-free" written all over it as one of the pros.
2) In one of the shops that sells DVD's that has the largest selection, 80% are region 1.
I've heard that some twisted offspring of the MPAA are suing the companies that import region 1 DVD's though, dont know what will happen in the future.
I thought Mel's father won big on some game show ($64,000 Pyramid) and then moved the whole family to Australia. I knew he was from upstate New York, but I didn't know mum was Australian.
--Mike
Not just Francophones, there are also many Canadians who have Asian or Western European first languages, and would probably would like to purchase region 3, 5 or 6 disks.
In Australia almost all TVs support both NTSC and PAL.
If it where that easy...
It turns out that movies in Oz must be approved by the censoring people who have to give it a stamp saying how bad it is. You can't show a movie without doing that. If it wasn't for that, the US studios could treat Australia just three more US cities with higher shipping costs. There are only 10 cities in the US biger than Sydney and only 13 bigger than Melbourne.
There is also the summer movie issue. If a movie is tied into summer releases, its winter downunder. Sure it won't make much difference in the real world but in the make beilve world of the high dollar marketteer it makes a world of differnce.
Today I bought a region selectable DVD player in Melbourne for AU$299 (US $155) and I'm typing this to the tunes of AC/DC (whos cd's cost less in the US than here even though they are a local band kind of)
Maybe the side of the goverment that deals with cultral preservation might want to go in as well. Currently there are mnay DVD's made in Aisa that can not be read by typical players in Australia and that could denys access of thouse people to information about their past. Doing that just happens to be illegal in Australia and might even be illegal in the US. Will someone who wants to play Asian DVDs call the ACLU and claim that the MPAA's actions discriminate and might even fit under organized hate crimes?
Being an American in Australia, I am being isolated from my culture since American culture seems to revolve around real bad tv shows...maybe the ACCC will help. Now if they would get their act together about Telstra.... that would be real nice.
OK, just went through my Region-1 DVD collection. 131 discs. 106 have either French soundtracks or French subtitles or both. Granted, I'd be pissed if I spoke French and wanted to watch one of the missing 25...
*cough* DeCSS *cough*
------
I can't really speak for the rest of the world, but certainly in the parts of Europe where I'm from, hardly anybody buys a region coded DVD player. People won't buy them so the merchants don't sell them.
In the US it's different. The main reason for the coding is to stop the rest of the world to get access to cheap US DVDs before the studios want it. This seems to be failing (see above). For people in the US, it makes little sense to try to beat that system, since they already have access to almost everythig, at among the lowest prices in the world.
Fine, Oz gets the raw end of the deal with DVDs, and the consumer protection people are planning to deal with it. GOOD FOR THEM!
/. Why don't you pester your elected representatives (Or alternatly just vote at your elections rather than sit on your asses being online) ? Do you really thing Blair, Bush, *insert your leaders name here* or their aides actually read this stuff? No I didn't think so.
The film industry pundits that pushed for regioning seem to have forgotton one important point. This is a global economy! If I want to buy goods from abroad I should not be prevented from doing so. This is not restricted to DVDs. The computer console industry are just as bad too. (not that I own, or plan to own a console)
Other examples include computer hardware/consumer electronics , why in the UK can they justify selling at $1=£1 ?
We the consumer have been taken from behind by big business for so long, that big business will do anything (like push for DMCA-alikes all over the world) so they can continue walking all over "us"; Freedom of speech, constitutional and human rights be damned!
Maybe I've read too much cyberpunk, but doesn't it look like the (Mega) Corporations run things now?
*sigh* I'm tired of reading the same type of posts over and over again. Why instead of posting on
Finally things start appearing which show the legal inconsistencies of DVD regarding law (decrypting DVD's, financial irregularities) however due to the fact that the MPAA has a lot of "juice" involved with the whole monopoly of it all... *oops* control of it, I doubt Australians could make enough of a dent with their case, in fact I would think they'd be like mosquitos picking at a Moose or something similar.
Instances like this where a small market makes noise would quickly be hushed, what they should have done, is contact other countries facing similar problems with this and then make noise. And if all else fails!@
They could always throw Russell Crowe in the Gladiator suit and send him to set things straight for those "mates" down under.
Echelonomics 101
Want Root?
The Act itself is fairly wide ranging, it covers things like price collusion, misleading advertising,anti-competitiveness, warranties etc. It basically is designed to protect the consumers rights over other entities. Here is a link to the ACCC summary of the act. I think the main objection is that the region system artifically reduces choice for the consumer, and gives a competitive advantage to the major publishers/distributors.
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.
Here is an example of the hyprocracy of the studios and region coding.
"The Castle" is an Australian movie. Long after the theatre release here and then in the US there was still no DVD release. Finally it was released on DVD - guess which region?
Region 1.
(Region 4 came a quite few months later)
To say that region coding is to protect differing distribution times is complete BS.
Actually, TV's do NOT get their "clock" from the powerline, they get it from the signal.
The original NTSC standard vertical frequency was 60.000Hz - this was done to minimize the effects of the power supply on the vertical retrace. For any given TV signal, the phase of the power line vs. the phase of the video signal would be a constant, and thus any distortion in the vertical scan due to the magnetic field of the power supply transformer would be constant from field to field, and thus much less objectionable than a wavery screen.
When the color subsystem was added to NTSC, the vertical retrace rate was changed to 59.99 Hz. (Don't ask me why, I don't recall off the top of my head).
This is not as much a concern on modern TVs: instead of a big wad of iron and copper transforming the power line at 60 Hz, the power supply rectifies the input to 300 VDC, and then uses a high frequency switching power supply to make the voltages needed from the line. The result is that you don't have the 60 Hz field off the power supply. As a result, an NTSC TV will quite happily run off 50 Hz (as long as the voltage is correct: remember that US power is nominally 120VAC, while UK power is nominally 240 VAC), and a PAL TV will run of 60 Hz (with the same caveat).
www.eFax.com are spammers
It was recently ruled here in Australia that parallel imports of CDs and electrical goods were legal, and manufacturers/distributors could not penalise retailers who sold parallels in addition to 'official' imports. DVDs would obviously be included.
However, we also have relatively new legislation like the DMCA which makes circumvention illegal. If we have a multi region DVD player, that's fine. But it's illegal to modify the player yourself or for someone else to make it multi region, or even to buy a modified player.
Now I wonder how this new development will affect that law.
---
There is also the summer movie issue. If a movie is tied into summer releases, its winter downunder. Sure it won't make much difference in the real world...
Climate is one of the few things that does make a difference (and that Internet hasn't changed yet). July 4 is a big opening day in the US, but it is close to hopeless to get people to go to the movies in July in northern countries (it does feel unnatural to come out of the late movies and be blinded by the sunshine, besides with 5 weeks of vacation, nobody is in the cities in July anyway).
Now, shifting the opening of a US July 4 opening to late August in Scandinavia is not going to make a big difference for when you can do worldwide DVD releases anyway.
Part IV of the Trade Practices Act deals with restrictive trade practices such as monopolisation, exclusive dealing, resale price maintenance and predatory pricing. In particular, section 45 of the Act basically provides that a Corporation shall not enter into an arrangement which has the purpose, or is likely to have the effect of, substantially lessening competition. In principle, this includes agreements made outside Australia which have the effect of lessening competition within Australia, although it's doubtful to what extent Australian law can be used to affect conduct originating in other jurisdictions. There are also a pile of exceptions to these provisions (eg. for arrangements between related companies), but none seem to apply to DVD region coding. The ACCC is perhaps the most powerful (and active) regulatory body in Australia, with a broad mandate and power to prevent anti-competitive, unfair and unconscionable conduct in trade and commerce.
If the EU would follow the Australian example (which is not unthinkable), I doubt that the MPAA would just forget about zone 2...
That would almost limit DVD sales to North America alone.
There's apparently a workaround, but in my case I just played it on my laptop, which connected to the TV via S-VHS connection, and found the results just as good.
--
Paul Gillingwater
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
I was actually at a Continuing Legal Education seminar the other day and Ross Jones from the ACCC was there. He had a bit to say on the DVD encoding and he made it sound like they were definitely going after it on a couple grounds. Firstly Australia has a worse selection of DVDs than the US, secondly there is evidence to suggest that region 4 DVDs are worse quality than their European and American counterparts. Also the encoding makes it difficult for consumers on holidays to places like the US to pick up DVDs legally and watch them here. Ultimately they see the region code as a matter of price discrimination and aren't pleased about it.
l le ctual_Property_11_5_01.htm
He also ran through the possible counter arguments and gave some defenses. The argument that the encoding prevents movies on DVD been released in the US before they get a cinema showing here is pointless now as the cinema releases normally run to close together to make a difference. He also suggested that as most music DVDs are region 0 its definitely not impossible for them to do this and even pointed out that not having to provide local content maybe cheaper.
I'm just happy to know that they will go after this because I'm sick of Australia having expensive DVDs and generally dodgy tech laws it also nice to see that they actually do know what they are talking about.... Oh and here is a link to the seminar material.. (its about 3/4 of the way down)
http://www.accc.gov.au/speeches/2001/Jones_Inte
or
Link
The government went after M$ because they give away a free browser with their OS (among other things). Now look at the movie industry. Granted they are more than one company, but they control the process from making the movie all the way down to what kind af hardware you can watch it on. If I wanted to invent a new media or a different format I could do it, but what good what it do me? Even if it were 10x better than DVD, I wouldn't be able to get any movies published in that media unless I made them myself or sold the rights to the Industry on their terms. I think this is way more out of line than the M$ thing, but it will never get the same scrutiny.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
I've got a couple of Troma DVD's which can be played in all regions. It's the same with adult movies. I think the DVD's actually are set to region 0, which means everything.
Although I congratulate the ACCC for pushing this point, I have to wonder what repurcussions this may have on our DVD market?
It's most likely to mean legal zone modified players, however that would be in direct opposition to the new digital copyright circumvention laws.
<? include ('signature.inc'); ?>
Mel Gibson was born in upstate New York to an Australian mother and American father. The whole family picked up and moved to Australia when Mel was about eight years old, so he didn't just "go to acting school" there.
The issue of disks that cannot be played in 'region free' players is actually a cute hack by the DVD consortium where disks are _intentionally_ created in such a way that they confuse 'region free' players, specifically to disable playing the disk on those players. It's no accident.
But any player that refuses to play a non-region-coded disk is itself not in compliance with the standards.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
What's so sad about the massive politicized anti-region-encoding movement, is that VHS tapes are also "region encoded", in that there are at least two entirely incompatible standards for encoding the video signal (NTSC and PAL) which are used throughout the world, and you can't buy a video tape from a region which uses PAL (such as Europe) and play it back in an NTSC region (such as the US). Apparently, the backers of this movement are so new to video, that they didn't experience this. And of course, it begs the question: how did small, independent film producers deliver their movies worldwide? A region-free DVD is, in fact, much less "region restricted" than a VHS tape, because it is 100% compatible with all playback equipment.
The trade practices act is a magnificent piece of foward thinking legislation that, along with the Family Law Act, are the legacy of one of the most extraordinary people in Australian legal and political history Lionel Murphy.
"http://lionelmurphy.anu.edu.au/lionel_murphy.htm"
Disclaimer: I disagree with his politics but can only admire this man.
I regularly lament for the "Lawyer Philosopher" that existed at the previous "changes" in social structure that we seem to lack now in the Information revolution.
Where are these people today?
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Also, region 4 is Latin america too, so they'll have to add spanish and portuguese content to the same dvd. And latin america has to be an even smaller market than australia.
--
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Region coding is just an example of how large corporations want free trade... as long as it doesn't cut into their profits.
I live in Adeliade Australia.Last XMAS I made the big upgrade from tape to DVD. So I bought a unit that could play any zone without modifying any hardware or doing any chip stuff. It was a normal purchase from a large retail chain. The zone was set by password, and we left it on Zone 0. We play zone 1 and zone 4. So far only one zone 1 disc has given us problems. Whats the problem??? Who has done something wrong here???
I used to buy from Canada, but region 1 versions aren't always the best available.
it's in my head
that they want; but that the big American studios are the only ones which produce
(a scarcity) of region 4 titles for viewing in Australia. Small studios without the
"foresight" to make a region 4 disk are shut out of the marketplace; and the major studios
only have to offer a select few movies -- not the entire catalogs available in the US.
Here in Japan, we have the same problem, but it's nothing that a region-free player and
(choose your favorite mail-order firm) can't solve....
most all anime companies hate region coding and macrovision. usually when they are used its on the request of the japanese companies.
no
Mel Gibson went to acting school?
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
That's the point: the MPAA are already neglecting region 4! (There were 720 R4 discs available, compared to 5 000 R1.) To combat this, they could require all DVD players sold in Australia to be multi-region capable! At which point, either the whole zoning system collapses, or the MPAA has to persuade every DVD player manufacturer to refuse to supply Australia. Of course, once all the Australian electronics shops sell multi-region players, those players will catch on elsewhere...
Next question: what are the odds of the US govt making a similar move? ;-)
The reason that films are released in Australia, Asia and Europe well after North America is cost. The studios save money on print costs by re-using the same prints in different English speaking markets.
The current average opening for an average Hollywood film is about 3,000 screens in North America. After two months, the film will be down to several hundred screens and the distributor will have accumulated enough still good prints to rlease into other English speaking markets. The UK is the single biggest outside North America, so they get first dibs. The UK release, however, usualy gets syncronized with a Europe wide release, so the other language versions have to be ready as well.
After the UK run is over, the distributor recycles the prints again for tertiary markets. Sorry, but to Hollywood, OZ is a tertiary market. After you are done with them, they will have very few prints still in a watchable state. Those they probably send to smaller or less important markets. If you see an English version of a movie in someplace like Calcutta, for example.
Why do they do this? Because despite the glories of digital technology, films are barely advanced from the 19th century technology that spawned them. Prints are expensive to make. 3,000 prints of a 2 hr movie will cost between $2 million and $3 million, plus other post production costs, and shipping costs. Big, complicated or very long movies can cost a lot more.
The movie studios are also mostly the same companies that distribute the movies, so their effective monopolies allow this methodology. That was based on the days when the North American gross amounted to between 60% and 75% of the total gross. That has changed radically in the last ten years. The average in now close to 50/50. Some movies, like Stallone films, for example, do much better abroad than they do here in North America. In addition, REALLY big movies have started moving to global premiers. The Phantom Menace was the first film to be able to claim a near global premier. It had over 7,000 prints spread around the world (mind you, over 4,500 were still in North America).
The upcoming Jurassic Park III will be the first movie to open on 10,000 screens and will be a truly global release.
These two trends, along with the front-loading revenue strategies the studios/distributors are using more and more, mean that staggered regional releases will become less common in the future.
He said it was feasible that a court could order that all DVD players sold here have a multi-zone capability.
Sold! I'm sure a hell of a lot of people (myself included) would be willing to pay for shipping of a product like this. And it's not just a case of wanting to see the films first - Region 1 DVDs frequently have way more features than we get here in Region 2, and I'm sure this is the case for the other regions as well. I can understand why Hollywood likes to stagger the opening of movies so they've got a chance to make some money back before the hype starts elsewhere, but I think they're fighting a losing battle with media like DVDs in an increasingly global marketplace.
So while I love the idea of the damn region code scheme being thwarted, it seems like this case will just end up making the ACCC look like fools.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Please point out where in the story this is explained. Geez, these knee-jerk reactions...
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
So should you. The article explicitly states that supposedly, the region coding directly hinders "small studios" from releasing their stuff to Australia. This is untrue, or at least they fail to explain why it would be true.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Some have caught on; i've seen a couple of DVDs which are RC 1 and 4 (and no others).
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
In Norway, the consumer authorites have very extended powers. The laws are also created in a way that protect consumers, since they are the non-professional part in a purchase or equal.
The problem here is that the region 1 DVDs are being difficult to sell in stores. The film companies has challenged the smaller DVD stores and also some of the big chains of stores with the 'illegal parallel import' rule under the copyright act. This was a rule made to protect record companies from stores importing cheaper identical products from abroad.
The consumer ombudsman is going to challenge this in court, claiming that a DVD from region 1 more often than not isn't an identical product. The region 2 DVD made for Scandinavia often has Pro Logic soundtrack where the region 1 has DTS (!) as the case is with the Titan A.E. DVD. That's why they're not identical, and the stores should be allowed to import them. Simple as that.
Some of us cinephiles aren't referring to English language movies dubbed in French, we are referring to movies that were made in French in the first place. And in the category there is a HUGE number of Region 2 films the are not (and probably will never be) released in Region 1. In the cases of French movies that do get released in Region 1, the region 2 versions are often vastly superior containing 16:9 support, better sound, supplements, etc. One good example is the Region 2 Francois Truffaut box from MK2 vs. the same movies from Fox Lorber in Region 1. You might as well be watching different movies, the R2 quality is so superior. Anyway, I am amazed the we here in the USA put up with someone telling us what we me or may not import and what we may or may not watch. Fight for your freedom! Ted
It would probably violate an EU directive to have more than one region code within the European Union. That approach should be extended.
I'm afraid not. There are several players out now that will not play region-free discs, and there are several discs that will not play on region free players.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Licensing. Remember DVD is owned my a corporation.
I read the short article on news.com.au about this, but the one thing I did not learn from it was why this was considered a breach of Australia's Trade Practice Act.
Could someone post a pointer to the body of the act, and perhaps a synopsis? What exactly is it that is objectionable? That Australians cannot view "first-run" movies and on DVD simultaneously, that they cost more than other places, that only a small amount of titles have been made available on DVD for consumption in Region 4, or some combination of all three?
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
- - -
Dexter is a good dog.
See this URL:
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.10
Not that I support region codes, but, if Australians wanted to they could make DVD's that work on any player...
i think the article got accc's complaint a little mixed up. the complaint is probably not about australian filmmakers not being able to distribute their product around the world. they can always remove regional coding to do that.
the complaint is about the fact that how commercial product is always coded and that australia's region 4 gets short shrift on releases and availablity. so australia only gets 750 dvd titles versus north america's 5000+ titles and region 4 dvds are relatively expensive because of the smaller quantities and the 'protected' market.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
Actually, many modern mods laugh in the face of RCE and don't fall for this tactic. Mine among many assumes that staying in the current region is fine if it still passes the test. RCE can't put a misleading code on the disc or it would break compatibility on the initial check, so uses 0. This means your previous setting passes the test.
So if the worst comes to the worst, all you do is play a non-RCE disc of that region first, and then it doesn't need a manual help.
Finally, in the cases I've seen so far (Braveheart, Charlies Angels, Hollow Man) even if you get the RCE error message, you can just tell your player to start playing Title 1, Chapter 1 and it obliginly starts the film for you. Some protection there!
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I think it would be wise to point out that the idea of corporate control over media is not exactly a new idea here. The vast majority of newspapers that (more than several) people read are owned by two men. Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, both of whom also own large chunks of our commercial, free-to-air television (Packer owns Channel 9, for instance). Murdoch's News Limited company is also the part owner of Foxtel Australia (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).
Now both "media moguls" have been attempting to "modify" (ie. dissolve) cross-media ownership laws that control how much and what types of media that they can legally own. This is done through control of the print media, which involves being very selective, not about what you report (which would be too obvious) but how you report it. This involves things such as politically motivated editorials and the way articles, particularly articles concerning politics, are written. At election time, our government being the poll-driven, reactionary PR machine that it is (the Liberals more so), the media suddenly holds more power because the coverage of election-time events (particularly the election itself) can subtly influence the election results.
This phenomena is particularly evident during the HDTV debacle, where the moguls wanted the proposed restrictions on datacasting lifted so that they could provide extra services besides just TV. So far, at least, these efforts have not been successful and as a result HDTV is simply not much more than glorified (and digitised) free-to-air TV broadcast about 10 seconds later. Hence, it makes this story about the ACCC (a government body) taking an interest in the legal conflict with DVD region encoding a little more interesting. Especially when the ACCC has in the past been regarded as little more than the government's toothless tiger. So I doubt that much can be done by the ACCC about this region encoding debacle, considering that the companies who instituted this system are US-owned. And since the practice of region encoding is deemed entirely legal in the US, the strategy we should be taking at this stage is not a direct legal challenge to the system of region encoding but a way around the system as is proposed here (ie. make all DVD players available in Australia multi-zone capable). Although given that the Australian media moguls are part of multi-national companies this may make things difficult. But I'd personally like to see it happen.
Self Bias Resistor
"If it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid." - Murphy's Laws of Combat
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
>> Hey Jack Valenti. I have a free and open clue for you.
>> Release the damned movie at the same time in Australia.
>> And everywhere else.
They probably would if they could. IIRC, each copy of a 35mm or 70mm film costs a lot, on the order of 10^5 dollars per copy, maybe more now. This is precisely one of the big selling points of digital movies: no print costs, and no shipping costs. And of course, no wear and tear on the print.
adéu,
Mateu
"And we're happy here, but we live in fear, we've seen a lot of temples crumble..." - Concrete Blonde
While in the big-bad real world, Australia (my wonderful home!) may seem like a bit of a Backwater, the ACCC - http://www.accc.gov.au/ will be tenatious.
One of two things will happen as a result of this challenge: either all region types of DVDs will be sold in Australia, or more likely the compromise will be for DVD players to be made region-free as a mandatory requirement (Thus "negating" the region-locking).
you might find this useful: http://scaletext.law.gov.au/cgi-bin/download.pl?/s cale/data/pasteact/0/115 or the definitive entry point: http://www.fed.gov.au/ where you can search for legislation etc.
Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!
Dan =)
Expensive, multisystem NTSC VCRs can also play PAL tapes (it works both ways! :-). Here's an example.
The difference between VCR and DVD machines is not just the intent of "region coding", but also the legality of defeating it. I can't find a region-free DVD player in any normal shop in Canada. I, however, can walk into Future Shop (think Circuit City, Best Buy) tomorrow and buy an NTSC and PAL compatible VCR (I wonder if it can play SECAM tapes?).
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
To determine whether or not to play a disc, the player has to logically AND the disc's region with the region code. As in:
if( (discs_region_mask & player_region)==0 )
do_not_play_the_disc();
else
play_the_disc();
It would be more appropriate to call an unrestricted disc region 255. If the mask is 0, that would be a disc that would play in no regions.
-Dave
IMO, that's too fuckin' bad.. when I hear of multimillion dollar takings in a single weekend, I don't see how they can stand there and whinge about making a few extra reels of film... they could even distribute it in digital format and be done with film (keep film for the studio).
That this will work, but I dont know what is going to put the MPAA in their place. What is to say that they wont just forget about zone 4?
Unfortunately, not much. There is a market over here in Region 4 (I have no idea why we're in the same reason as South America, I really don't). For some reason, we seem to get movies fairly shortly after they come out in the states (a few weeks... or occasionally an inordinately long time later - I guess it depends on which way around the world they go, or something). I don't really think a month or so delay is really enough to justify being in a different region with a longer release schedule, is it?
We speak (mostly :-)) the same language as people in Region 1. It's not uncommon for people here to get Region 1 DVDs if they haven't been released quickly enough on Region 4 - and because they often support better formats and features.
Are you on the Sfglj (SF-Goth EMail Junkies List) ?
Er.. yes. Yes I am, actually. Despite being in New Zealand. Weird, huh? :-)
This is called "region code enhancement" and actually old news: The DVD is labelled as RC0 but checks the region code later. So a codefree player or a player with automatic RC switching will not be able to play that disc.
Good player modifications will allow you to switch the player's region code manually and render RCE useless.
Claus
OTOH regional codes were explicitly designed to prevent the free use of DVDs in other regions and come in addition to the problems already caused by different video standards - there are both NTSC and PAL/SECAM DVDs.
In fact, most recent PAL VCR models (and PAL DVD players) will just play NTSC videos (or NTSC DVDs from the same region, which is the case for European PAL RC2 players and Japanese NTSC RC2 discs, for example) on any TV set but DVD players won't play DVDs from other regions.
Claus
Judge says "Do the studios make DVD's Regionless?"
Defense says "Not in the majority of cases"
BAM! MPAA is now a defendent.
But, at least here, you'd have to order it from a foreign country, from an online store, no paralell imports allowed here. Reasons it doesn't really work:
1. Shipping Time
2. Shipping Cost
3. Time to pass customs
4. Customs costs (at least for us it's flat fee + actual customs, rather expensive for small shipments)
5. Returns of faulty player (both time and money)
6. Passing out credit card info online
7. No impulse buys (take it home, put in player)
8. Can't borrow friends' DVDs from local zone
9. Can't rent from a local shop
10. Can't sell/trade DVDs you don't want anymore easily.
That's ten of the top of my head. I'm sure there are more...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Mr Gareton said piracy was another concern, because a DVD made a good master copy - unlike VHS video, which degraded with each copy.
And this has what to do with region coding? Oh I forget we mix it into CSS so piracy protection == region coding. It has *nothing* to do with eachother, except in MPAAs smokescreen.
South-East Asia and China each had their own regions because of rampant piracy.
Well they can play their own pirated discs, but they can't export them around the world. But if there really were an international piracy organization, wouldn't you just buy a disc from each region to pirate??
Another reason was compliance with national censorship ratings. "The Australian release could have cuts of scenes with violence and sex," he said. "The distributor might be happy to release a movie in Australia as MA, but the original movie would have been an R."
And if that was the case, why not just make a different edition of the DVD. Then the censored one could be sold as MA rated. Not only that, but people would actually have the choice about getting the MA or R rated movie. Then you got two (2) versions of the DVD, not one for each region. And, regions != countries. Some countries might want the MA version, some the R version within the same region. What's wrong with choice?
Warner had conducted market research and consumers did not seem to have an issue with region coding.
Well, that depends on what consumers you ask. Of course the average buyer that picks up his Region X player and Region X top-sellers from his local shop won't know the difference until he a) Wants a movie not released in his region b) Moves to another region c) Try to borrow a friends' DVDs who has a region-free player and different region discs.
The issue of different formats for different regions was not new, because videos were released in either PAL or NTSC format, he said.
Uhh.. try again. I got a TV card that can capture in NTSC and PAL, a TV that can play NTSC and PAL, a video that can play NTSC and PAL. They started out as different formats due to the net current 50Hz vs 60Hz, but there's no longer any reason to have a difference (look at HDTV). Trying to use a n obsolete technical difference to justify an artificial content controlling difference is just plain rude.
Consumers keen to watch imported movies could always buy a second DVD player for the appropriate zone.
No comment. The stupidity of that speaks for itself.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I've heard of click-wrap licensing... would the most logical name for this be blink-wrap licensing? Or... park-your-ass-wrap licensing (i.e. get up and leave if you don't like it)...
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
To the MPAA: The audio CD format is universal. Any CD plays in any CD player in the world. How has this "harmed" the music industry? How do you perceive the movie industry as being any different and in need of a protection scheme?
As I can remember, pal machines can read NTSC videos so it's only the NTSC people who are restriced with there videos, unlike DVD's were everyone is restricted.
--
The computer told me to press any key to continue,I pressed the one looking like this (|) !!OH SH*T!!
I hate regioning as much as the next anime fan, but I don't quite understand how they have a case here. Can't these small outfits just make region-free DVDs?
Sure, the publishers have the right to distribute where they want, but making it difficult or impossible to use region 1 (or other region - eg. Japanese anime!) discs elsewhere sounds pretty darn fishy to me. Someone needs to sue them here, in the States.
sulli
RTFJ.
And it isn't illegal here in the US, either. Why do people think that?
FWIW, the two are not "entwined" as you imply. You can author DVDs with region coding that are not CSS encrypted and vice versa. For example you could make a region free (0) DVD which still used CSS to prevent copying.
No, region coding is not "tied up with" CSS. They are entirely seperate. Look for another post under this topic about this... it's entirely possible to author dvd's with one or both of region coding and css, or neither at all.
Dear World, Don't underestimate the power of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. This was the ONE organisation on the planet that stared down Epson Inc. on their global (mis)claims on their inkjet performance. For those who don't know or remember, Epson blinked. Their statutory abilities include fining corporations amounts that REALLY hurt and targeting directors of offending companies to the tune of A$50,000 (US$25,000) per day, per offence. Yes folks, dry-cleaners to the corporates know when the ACCC calls but like any public institution, PR matters.... ceo@accc.gov.au Vote soon, vote often... If you happen to be American, vote anyway. We're a very multicultural bunch down here :-)
We might be a mouse be we can still roar and I think one good roar may be all region coding needs to come tumbling down...
Another source of region 0 disks is the national parks. Their souviner DVD's are meant to be taken home. I have a wonderful one on Yellowstone National Park which is region 0. Don't look for the movie studios to release stuff that will do an end run past their distribution profit model.
The truth shall set you free!
Really. So explain to me why
- "Jaws"
- "Taxi Driver"
- "The Godfather"
- "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
all contain Region coding. (Are you getting the picture?)If region coding was truly about theatrical release schedules, then movies that were released before 1996 wouldn't have region coding. No, region coding has been and always will be about trade restrictions and price gouging.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
A few nitpicks. First, languages have no bearing on region codes. Even if they did, it wouldn't be Region 2, which has only one Spanish speaking country (Spain).
You'll find the same language scattered amongst multiple regions. Spanish, to use your example, is found in half of the 6 regions. Region 1 (Puerto Rico), Region 2 (Spain), Region 4 (most of the South American countries).
Second, the Dominican Republic is not in Region 2. It's a Region 4 country, the same as South America and Australia. A list of most countries in each region can be found here.
Region 1 DVDs with no spanish subtitles,
Most "mainstream" Region 1 discs are either Spanish dubbed or subtitled. French is also very common, those being the most common languages after English in Region 1. My girlfriend is Spanish speaking and we notice these things.
That this will work, but I dont know what is going to put the MPAA in their place. What is to say that they wont just forget about zone 4?
The Lottery:
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Though that only provides access to Hollywood movies (Region 1 encoded), you still cannot get and watch movies from Europe (Region 2), or Aisa (Region 3?), which produce lovely movies that are a refreshing break from Hollywood style flicks.
Canada has a small film industry, and I believe that most of the smaller companies cannot afford to license DVD's region codes to competition globally. This should be setting off fireworks in the federal culture office (Canadian Heritage), but hasn't seen to trigger a trickle of interest. In fact the only DVD I have from a Canadian production is not CSS encrypted (thus not region coded either).
The problem is, like in the DeCSS case, short- sighted people assume that any films will be both available and more common in VHS format, so DVDs don't really matter.
It is also a problem because Canadian retailers stock Region 1 (North Americian) DVD players, yet I do not know of any french language DVDs with Region 1 code, thus interefering with francophones who wish to buy a DVD player and watch french DVDs (which tend to be Region 2).
Number one, Professor Fells, the principal guy behind the ACCC. This is a man that can not be bought. He's challenged the some of the biggest industries and won, because of his tenacity and his commitment to the people he represents.
Secondly, monkeys.
Cheers,
leroy.
Unfortunately making region free players available has only a limited effect on preventing the differential pricing since retailers can only practically sell the disks from their own region. People like myself who buy 30+ discs at a time can go through Amazon.com but that route does not offer savings for foreign buyers of small numbers of discs. Perhaps people will start clubbing together to plaqce large orders (and swap the discs afterwards).
Ultimately region encoding will fail since the cost of DVD players will inevitably plummet. There is no reason a DVD player should cost more than a CD player ($50 or less). Even a portable player with a screen is unlikely to cost more than $150 in a couple of years (LiIon battery extra).
Standing up to monopolistic exploiters is what governments are for. The MPAA has a very US centric mindset in which all government problems are solved the way they are solved in the US - with large cash bribes (sorry campaign contributions).
The EU and the Australian government will prove much harder to intimidate. The WTO treaty does not compromise their ability to punish an international cartel. The studios have extensive assets in the EU and Australia and no treaty stops a sovereign government imposing a fine for restraint of trade.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I'm not sure about that. The EU has adopted similar provisions to those contained in the DMCA (based on the World Copyright Treaty.) The various member nations haven't yet signed them into law, but in theory they have to at some point. At that time, the MPAA should have the ability to enforce the CSS licenses and prevent the sale of region-free machines ("circumvention devices").
I hadn't realized that Australia and New Zealand were in another region entirely from 1 and 2. If anyone is going to get this party started it will have to be folks like you and the quebecian francophones, who are really being hurt by the standard and have the clout to do something about it.
Unfortunately I doubt if it would be easy to get the ball rolling on region elimination here in the US that easily, simply because it affects us the least. Sure, there are a lot of snipey anime fans and foreign film buffs, but they don't have much clout. Those folks also know where to find multiregion players (although I challenge you to find one current DVD-equipped laptop that can be safely modified) And as evidenced by the fact that the MPAA managed to push through a feature that really only served them (region coding) on a foreign company (Sony) whose entertainment choices weren't even protected by the regions (anyone in europe can get them if they don't mind Japanese), it will be an uphill battle. So make some noise enough to attract the press.
cryptochrome
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Also "region coding" with NTSC/PAL is something I doubt you ever saw. Remember, it's a good mix of countries on 60 cycle and countries on 50 cycle (which is what determines which format you use). For a movie studio to decide not to release ina given format is to cut off a huge market. However it's a little different with region coding, they can decide to cut out just a certian cubset of countries.
Finally, the intent is different. The reason for the NTSC/PAL thing is first power timing, since a TV takes it's clock from the powerline and second differences in resolution (PAL is higher). This was just teh way things got developed. Region coding was developed SPECIFICALLY to let the movie industry make more money. This way they can decide when they want something introduced to a specific region and how much it will cost, and you can't import from other regions to get around this.
How about some Australian company start to make DVD players that have DeCSS built in to decode any region disk on the fly? A'm quite sure that with a deticated chip it would be fast enough. And the last time I checked the DMCA was a US law.
Check out this report in The Australian IT.
Non - Multizone DVD players are illegal in New Zealand. It's great.
A few nitpicks. First, languages have no bearing on region codes. Even if they did, it wouldn't be Region 2, which has only one Spanish speaking country (Spain).
You'll find the same language scattered amongst multiple regions. Spanish, to use your example, is found in half of the 6 regions. Region 1 (Puerto Rico), Region 2 (Spain), Region 4 (most of the South American countries).
I know that. Also like you pointed out, the Dominican Republic is in Region 4. However that proves my point even more: we, the people who live here do not even know what our region is supposed to be!!! - not even DVD distributors you ask know anything about DVD zones!!!
Most "mainstream" Region 1 discs are either Spanish dubbed or subtitled. French is also very common, those being the most common languages after English in Region 1. My girlfriend is Spanish speaking and we notice these things.
You said it, mainstream, but I'd say over 50% aren't, and that's unaceptable.
It is interesting to note that DVD Zoning is not respected or enforced in the Dominican Republic. Here 100% of all DVD players and movies are Region 1 (U.S.), and yet since we're a spanish-speaking country we're supposed to be in Region 2.
Note only that, but there is no way anyone can force people to change, since it is a cultural thing here for everyone to buy things from the US (half the domininican population in the world lives in New York), and besides people here do not like being last in getting movies out. In the end, this only helps american movie distributors as Region 2 distributors are already obsolete here.
I have the feeling that this is the case also in many countries and the DVD Forum is blinded to this reality (which also affects their market perception, since they probably think for example that in the Dominican Republic DVDs have a low penetration rate since NOBODY buys Region 2 DVDs, while the reality is that in the middle and high classes VHS tapes are being quickly replaced by DVDs).
The bad thing is that many people here do not speak english, so it is VERY annoying having to buy Region 1 DVDs with no spanish subtitles, which in turn hurts the whole DVD phenomenom.
Proposal: We live in a GLOBAL economy, release the darn DVDs in a region-free state to ALL countries SIMULTANEOUSLY and avoid this control-freak stupidity.
First, to the above poster - If you're going to make a statement like this at least stand behind it. (a.k.a. Don't post anonymous) Secondly - I agree with the idea behind this post. Slahsdot often seems to be a forum for posting selfish desires. (Software should be GPL'd, closed source is bad. MP3's are great, we shouldn't give money to people for being creative.) Thirdly - I think that the ACCC is doing the right thing. However, I agree that we should (gasp!) pay for movies, music, and any other creative endevor, which we wish to make use of. I would be happy to pay for MP3's (with the cavet that I am not paying a ridiculios amount for them, price gouging.) I do rip my own CDs for my own use as MP3's, though I have already paid for the use of the song. And I buy DVDs, I don't go out and download them. This being said though, I think its rediculous for the MPAA to be able to limit the import of DVDs to a country, and the region codeing is doing just this. If they wish to delay a release of a movie outside the US, then it is thier own fault that some DVDs will be sold in other countries before the movie hits theaters. Anyway, a good movie will draw people to the theaters to see it, even if they have it on DVD. (I went and saw the re-release of the Star Wars Trilogy when it was in the local theater. BTW, great was to spend a day, but the rear gets a bit sore.) What the MPAA is doing is simply trying to control when and where their products get released. This allows them to fix prices. And this is wrong as far as I am concerned. In closing - Am I the only one who thinks that the MPAA might just be an illegal trust?
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Actually, there is a REASON why they ship late to ther countries that has nothing to do with translating the film, and that is becuase they want to make sure the movie is a blockbuster in the US before they spend teh money on releasing it overseas. I remeber in Japan there were times that a movie would be show in trailers as "Coming Soon", but that never actally came to Japanese theaters becuase the movie flopped in the US. Other times, a movie that was doing stupendously well would be released months early in Japan to catch the wave of popularity. It is all about making the big movie bucks...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
End-user license agreement for Big Movie House Motion Picture
IMPORTANT-READ CAREFULLY: This Viewer License Agreement ("VLA") is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity) and Big Movie House Motion Picture Corporation ("Us") for the Big Movie House Motion Picture entertainment product identified above, which includes visual and auditory signals reproduced from media. This entertainment product may include, reference, or be referenced by associated media, printed materials, and "online" or electronic information or advertisement (collectively, "ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT"). By viewing, referencing, or otherwise using the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT (the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT EXPERIENCE), you agree to be bound by the terms of this VLA. If you do not agree to the terms of this VLA, you may not join in the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT EXPERIENCE.
ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT LICENSE
The ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties, as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties. The ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT is licensed, not sold. For the duration, and in accordance with the strictures outlined below, the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT is licensed to you for use only as a part of the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT EXPERIENCE.
INTRODUCTION. The ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT is comprised of the following components: (i) the visual and auditory reproductions from media of the original entertainment product in a mannner allowed under the legal and authorized sale of the original media to authorized ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT EXPERIENCE vendors; (ii) any and all associated media, printed materials, and "online" or electronic information or advertisement; and (iii) Foreign Language translations of the same ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT. The Foreign Language translations of the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT for use with the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT EXPERIENCE are subject to this VLA, which VLA will only be provided in English. English shall be deemed the language that controls the terms of this VLA.
This VLA describes your rights with respect to the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT and its associated ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT EXPERIENCE.
1. GRANT OF LICENSE. This VLA grants you the following rights:
* Standard Use. You may experience, one (1) time a copy of the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT in a single location for a contiguous period of time (the SHOWING PERIOD).
* Associated Use. Big Movie House Motion Picture Corporation grants you a non-exclusive, limited license, subject to the associated use requirements below, to: (i) reference in speech or in writing portions of the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT (ii) create displays, discriptions, or informative productions referencing the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT in any way.
* Associated Use Requirements:
ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT. If you exercise the Associated Use rights described above, you agree to: (a) only exercise the associated rights described above in forums accessible only to persons or single entities in the ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT REGION where you were originally granted this ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT LICENSE
Alright, so hopefully it won't happen, but don't be surprised when you have to click on the I agree button the next time you go to the theatre.
Nietzsche on Diku:
sn; at god ba g
:Backstab >KILLS< god.
Most people I know have made their point of view known where it counts - at the cash register when they bought their DVD player.
Sure, the big brand players are mostly better quality, with fancier features, but Australians are snapping up the smaller asian brands for half the price that play discs from ALL REGIONS!
If enough people in the world buy these, and continue buying discs (esp. region 1) overseas, it will make a mockery of this system in a way that will see it end.
Will I be able to send by DVD-ROM back to Matshita to get it made region free? Or will they release an approved and supported firmware update?
----------------------------- Currently serving a 13 year sentence at juvenile "education" centre.