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An End-Run Around Region-Free DVD Players
inio writes: "Warner Home Video has devised a new regioning mechanism called RCE (Regional Coding Enhancement) to fight back against "region-free" players. The disk itself is unregioned (region 0) but contains a script which checks the player's native region instead. This protection has been added to recent and soon to be released DVDs including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and The New Stanley Kubrick Collection, so watch out if you bought a region-free player. A list of known-compatable players can be found back on this page." "Enhancement" seems to be pretty high doublespeak in this instance.
If this kind of technology could eventually lead to country music CDs that could not be played outside of Alabama, I'm all for it!
who wants to see Harrison Ford speaking Italian in Blade Runner.
People learning Italian, that's who! I would like to improve my German through DVDs, but Region 1 DVDs generally just contain English sound tracks, with French and Spanish subtitles. Sometimes French or Spanish sound tracks are included, but this isn't that common. And German tracks are never included, unless the film was originally in German
However, it is perfectly legal for Europeans to buy books published in the US via Amazon.com even if local publishers own the rights to print the same book in the purchaser's country. Therefore, it is clear that copyright law (which applies to books and movies equally) has nothing to do with the issue. Additionally, Australia and New Zealand (lands which respect international copyright law) have ruled that region-coding has no legal basis.
Start a class action suit agianst the MPAA for creating artifical high prices in the different countries. We are becoming more and more a world economy.
That's a load of crap. Copyright has to do with redistribution, not use. I have no right to redistribute something that is copyrighted. But, if I bought it legally, then I can do damn well whatever I want to with it *except* redistribute it without a license. Fair use in the cases you state are for redistributing something. If you can come up with a lawsuit that shows that you need a license to use something that you buy, I'd like to see it.
As far as an EULA is concerned, they have nothing to do with copyrights either. The EULA is software companies attempting to tell you how to use or not use software that you legally purchased.
The new warner region stuff is actually _good_ news to people because the disk is no longer locked by region meaning it plays in any DVD ROM drive with open source players. Saves some of that mucking about with firmware
As to region coding itself, well it violates NAFTA for a part (try moving a DVD around the NAFTA free trade zone since Mexico is not Region 1). Its all very odd - most Europeans only buy region free players 8)
I'm assuming this is a troll, but still...
I don't see why anyone here is complaining about being forced to actually obey copyright laws
This isn't about copyright law. Playing a region 1 DVD outside region 1 is in no way a breach of the traditional concept of copyright - I'm paying the copyright holder money in order to gain the right to play the film, but the copyright holder is then refusing to allow me to view the film if my DVD hardware is from somewhere other than the same region. Region encoding is not a mechanism for protecting copyright, it's a mechanism for allowing different markets to be sold different products at different times and preventing things moving between these markets in a way that the companies think may harm their profits.
The companies making these [regionless DVD players] are basically stealing from the movie companies
Again, no. Region encoding does not protect copyright. You can produce pirated DVDs with region encoding without any difficulty.
There are legitimate regionless DVD players. The first generation of DVD drives for computers were sold for their ability to allow you to watch DVDs, but are all region 0. Restricting this after the fact means that there are some people (including me) with hardware that was not bought for the purpose of avoiding region encoding who are now being discriminated against. This doesn't make me terribly happy.
What I find interesting is that there are so many folks who jump right on this bandwagon and start accusing people who violate these laws as theives. So many people have already come to accept that there is a new government dawning that I don't think there's any way to stop it. Because of the trends of the last 20 years, within the next 50 years, I expect the following events:
- The right to corporate profit (e.g. "you can't come out with a new, better widget, that would destroy our old widget market.") will become a globally backed right.
- Patents will only be restricted on the basis of prior art, and the terms will be extended to at least 100 years.
- Laws like DMCA/UCITA will become the subjects of international treaty.
If you think I'm wrong, please do me a favor: remember the exact date and time that you thought that....--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
At the end of the month, there will be DVD players on the shelves in Hong Kong that have a front-panel control to set/clear the region.
Still, if I happen to buy any discs that pull this trick, I'll rip them and then return them because "they don't work in my DVD player!"
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Those obligations are contractual obligations to the distributor in other regions. ``I'll sell this in europe, you sell in the US. Here's a contract where we'll agree to that''
But, such constraints do not OBLIGATE me to do the same. The only constraint I have is copyright law, which supposedly deliminates only certain particular rights that are reserved to the copyright holder. The ability to restrict the trading of copyrighted works, after being sold, was tested in court, and found to be unconscionable. ('doctrine of first sale') The court case that established this was when an evil store wished to sell used books, which a publisher did not wish, because it depressed the price of new books.
To respond to the great grandparent. You forget that copying isn't necessarily copyright infringment. Extracting snippets from a copyrighted work, performing a parody or critical satire, duplication for purposes of backup, etc. These all explicitly require copying, yet are generally considered to not be copyright infringment.
Ergo, the only thing that can decide whether or not a use of a copyrighted work is infringement is a court of law. (Though in many cases, there are pre-existing precedents to guide the court.)
In conclusion, copyright law is not and was NEVER intended to give an artist the right to control all possible users of the copyrighted work in any way they see fit. (Like banning the sale of used books or libraries.)
All the more reason to buy a DVD player that lets you change its region code an infinite number of times, rather than a region-free player. That's a subtle distinction most people don't notice when they're out hunting for a machine to play their anime or DVD's of Friends on.
I own an Apex AD600A, which can be set to be region-less, or to the region of your choice. I highly recommend it. It even plays mp3 CD's.
--Brogdon
This tagline is umop apisdn.
So how many North Americans have DVD players that play other regions?
I bought one just so I could watch a handful of BBC movies that I didn't want on VHS. Luckily I also have a world VCR so I could decode the damn PAL encoding...
What incentive does the BBC or any other non-US based production have in using the regioning system? Outside the MPAA, I would bet there are very few large, influential production companies so these non-region 1 companies have no real motive to prevent another region's people from buying their product. All these companies need to do is release their product on a double-sided DVD so that they can encode for PAL and NTSC.
I mean, really, what else do Americans really do besides consume? We've been training to be consumers for 100 years.
My best guess is that there is some law in the US about importing AV media without first paying the MPAA or some other body of fasci^H^H^H^H^Hcapitalists.
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
And how is using a region-free player getting a free ride? People pay money for a player, and
People pay good money for DVDs, and many people want to buy DVDs from other regions because perhaps the foreign DVD has better extras, or maybe the foreign DVD just isn't available in their home region.
Most of the people I know who use region free players use them to play legit DVDs they purchased from Japan. They bought it. They should be able to play it without having to buy an extra DVD player.
I see nothing illegal about playing a DVD that was payed for.
I don't know where people get the idea that when someone useses a product they bought the way they want to, they are stealing if the company who made the product loses money somehow. In the case of DVDs, I don't see how a DVD producer is losing money if I play their disc on a region free player.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I got a DVD ROM, and of course i run it under linux. I use XINE with Captain CSS's DVD plugin, and they linked to a nice little utility that lets me change the region code on the drive whenever i want, to whatever i want.
I am !amused.
However, I couldn't keep using the original loopholed Apex ROM, as bugs in the firmware made playing some discs very difficult, particularly those with "extended mixes" of the movies (e.g. Abyss, T2).
6 months ago, I replaced the EPROM with a double-sized equivalent, burned newer release ROMs patched to Region 1 and Region 0, one on each side, and added a simple switch. Details here (thanks Darren!)
Now I no longer have troubles with X-Men et al, I can play both my Region 1 and Region 4 discs on the region-free setting, and switch back to Region 1 for the two RCE discs I own (Charlie's Angels and Crouching Tiger).
In fact, checking again, it seems the latest firmware has been patched again to give both region-free playback and RCE defeat - I won't even need my switch anymore :-)
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I have DVD's released over a year ago with this "enhancement." Your best bet is to pick up a DVD player with the region switching menu. They haven't come up with a way to stop those yet.
Just a thought:
Region-coded DVD's cannot be moved from one region to another (assuming "legit" players). The object is to prevent people from moving DVD's out of the intended region, but the law of unintended consequences brings about the problem that you cannot move DVD's out of the intended region. Why is this a problem? Because people move occasionally.
The MPAA, when faced with this argument, would probably argue that very few people are affected by the problem, and that they choose to move anyway, so no biggie. There is, however, a large-ish group of people who move internationally, sometimes frequently, and really don't have a choice in the matter. These people are called "military."
Yup, the men and women of the US Armed Forces may represent a bit of hope for us. These people get transferred (PCS'd) overseas, to different DVD regions. They may spend a several years there, so saying "oh, just give up your movies until you get back" really doesn't fly. The use of region coding results in disenfranchisement of military members. Herein is our solution to the problem.
The MPAA member organizations disenfranchising (discriminating against?) our servicemen could probably be successfully sued for the problem. Even if active-duty servicemen were unsuccessful, reservists might have a chance--if a reservist is activated, federal law prohibits any form of discrimination based on that fact: employers must keep his job available when he returns (or an equivalent position), etc. If he is stationed overseas for some time, and decided to buy some movies on DVD, he would not be able to use them when he PCS'd back to the states. Most of the DVD packaging I have seen states the region in very small print, and nowhere is the concept of regions explained, so a reasonable argument could be made that the serviceman didn't know he would have trouble playing it elsewhere.
This being the case, the company that produced the DVD could probably be sued for replacement of the DVD with one valid in the next region in which the serviceman is stationed. One serviceman wouldn't be a big deal to the MPAA, but imagine this on a class-action scale. Imagine the MPAA having to have an office on every base for exchanging DVD's. This would quickly become a major problem for the MPAA, who would be forced to either start taking DVD exchanges (from everybody, ultimately), or come out with a new region for "those who move," or scrap the system entirely. They would likely choose the first option, but it would quickly grow to be a significant problem for them.
Remember the DMCA? That lovely little law that, among other things, prohibits circumvention of access controls? That's an important argument to use in court--"I can't circumvent region coding--that's illegal! Guess they'll just have to give me a new DVD!" Law's a real bitch when it works against you, and there would be poetic justice in using it against the group that so desperately wanted it. (Incidentally, since the MPAA doesn't do this right now, you could probably use this argument to challenge DMCA, saying it has a disproportionate effect on servicemen.)
Anyhow, there's my idea. The things I think of in the morning after I drink! If anybody thinks it's worth trying (IANAL, but dad is, and I can't help picking up a little, no matter how well I wash), thinks it might fly in court, post a reply. And go start getting real friendly with servicemen, especially those who just PCS'd to or from another region. We might just be able to get them legally, and make them the "bad guy" in the eyes of the law.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
They will sell me a washing machine that will only run at 2AM! Why can't I control what I buy?