Australia Rules DVD's are Films, Not Software

divereigh writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that an Australian Federal court has decided this case in favour of the Australian Video Rental Association. The Association had taken Warner Home Video to court for trying to classify DVD's as software and thus double the price for those sold into the rental market."

Comments

Hmmm

[sulli]

Does this mean Region Code Enhancement, which uses scripting to check whether the player is region 1 (and IIRC only region 1), would be banned in Oz?

Moral victory

[kenneth_martens]

Since I'm not in Australia, this doesn't affect me directly, but it's still a moral victory (now if we can just convince a judge in the US to accept an Australian court finding as precedent...)

Basically, the decision ruled that DVD movies cannot be treated as software simply because they are digitally recorded, and because DVD players have processors. I wonder if now AOL Time Warner will try to "modify" the DVD standard in order to make DVDs into "software" so they can go ahead with their scheme anyway. I doubt customers (meaning me) would go for that, since it would probably mean that people would have to get newer-model DVD players, but I wouldn't put it past them to try it.

Re:Australian Cousumers: 0, Video Rental Business:

[RedWizzard]

Nope, it's Austrlian Consumers: 1, Video Rental Business: 1, DVD Movie Distributors: 0. If Warner have of been allowed to charge double for "rental version" DVDs the rental stores would have had to pass that cost onto the consumer. This decision means the consumer will not see an immediate price increase in rental DVDs.

As for the price disparity between rental DVDs and videos:

• DVDs have better quality content so people will pay more.
• DVDs are more prone to deterioration (being very vulnerable to scratches) and so will not allow as many rentals before requiring replacement.
• DVDs are still catching on, people who own players tend to be wealthier and therefore less likely to be concerned about the higher cost.

Re:Not a fair classification.

[Spy Hunter]

This case doesn't have anything to do with the price consumers pay to buy a DVD. AOL-Time-Warner can still charge whatever they want for DVDs. This is all about rental- AOL/TW was trying to make it illegal to rent out retail DVDs, so that rental stores would have to buy special "rental" DVDs that of course cost an arm and a leg. Read the article!

Don't understand all the negativity...

[NanoGator]

I just don't understand all the negativity here. Here's how I see it: WB was playing games with what a DVD really is in order to squeeze more money out of rental places in questionable ways. They lost that right, and were punished. Customers at rental places are renting MOVIES, no matter what kind of 'software' is on the DVD. They're not renting DVD's to solve a problem, virus scan their hard drive, or render images in 3D.

Most DVD's aren't worth owning. I don't want to spend $40 or so on a DVD unless it's the type of thing I think I'll come back to again and again, like I did with T2. However, I do rent quite a few DVD's. And what Warner Bros. basically did was try to take that right away from me by jacking up the prices on their DVD's specifically for rental stores. That was not right. Tough noogies if WB doesn't get money for each rental. If their content isn't worth owning, that's their fault. Don't punish the consumers for it.

I do have concerns of the ramifications this might have in the future, though. So far, I'm encouraged though. By defining DVD's as movies, then movie rights are seperate from Software rights. At least Warner Bros. can't grease up some politician to take movie rights away that affect how I use software.