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Software Solution to DVD RPC2 Region Locking?
Martin writes "I just saw the DVD Region-Free utility, the other day. 'It allows you to watch all region DVDs on any DVD drive (especially RPC2) even if it has been locked. You don't need hack DVD drive (flash firmware) which is sometimes dangerous, useless or unavailable.' This seems really significant to me, yet I haven't heard anything about! Is this the first software based solution to RPC2?" Of course, it should be stated that the software mentioned above is for Windows only. Are there other similar pieces of software for other platforms?
If I buy a Japanese DVD, and find I can't play it on my machine, and I try a utility like this one to be able to watch something I purchased, am I stealing? Some movie companies think so. I strongly disagree with them. What about you?
RPC encoding has *Nothing* to do with piracy. Its about enforcing market manipulation and price-fixing.
Disabling RPC is all about being able to play a disc you bought legally in a different region, on your own player. Such as me being able to visit the US and play a new R1 DVD I have bought, on my laptop, on the way home. Which according to the movie mafia, should only play R4 discs.
Anyone with a brain knows that a home-made pirated disc (as opposed to a lot of the mass-pirated stamped discs out of asia) wont even have a region code on it, and the region lock wont matter a bit. As for the mass-pirates in asia, I dont want that crap. I am paying store prices, so I demand the genuine article. Most mass-pirated discs arent dual-layer anyway, AFAIK.
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random numbers is, of course, in a state of sin.-John von Neumann
No, but you have violated a contract that's legally binding (i.e., that has the force of law over its signatory parties) in Australia. You aren't committing a crime, per se, but you could be sued for breach of contract.
Honest Curiosity:
Australia has legislation to specifically prohibit corporations from attempting to control the import or use of their products from other locales outside Aus. Surely the contract itself would be illegal (and unenforcable) by Australian law. IANAL but I would have thought it was very wasteful to have to challenge an illegal contract in court to render it non-binding (or to use the inverse I don't like the implication that I could be held in breach of an illegal contract simply because I lack the legal muscle or money to force a challenge.)
It's not that I'm Anti-American - I'm Pro-Freedom
You're wrong about this. When a consumer buys a DVD disc, they do not enter into a contract with the manufacturer or distributor or retailer which prohibits them from disabling region coding on their player. There is nothing on DVD packaging which says anything about it, and the consumer is never notified that such a restriction exists. It is by definition impossible to enter into a contract that you are not aware of.
Your blurb about software licencing is off the mark. When you buy a Microsoft software package, you are told that opening the shrink-wrap constitutes acceptance of the licence inside. There is nothing of the kind on DVD media packages.
Manufacturers of DVD drives and DVD players are under contract with the DVD consortium which gives the manufacturer the right to produce DVD player devices but which requires them to produce only region-locked devices. Manufacturers of DVD media are under contract with content owners to produce DVDs of this content, and that contract usually includes a provision requiring the disc to be region locked. The consumer is under no contract at all.
Copying a DVD is a violation of copyright laws. Decrypting a DVD with an unlicenced DVD player is a violation of the DMCA in the US and equivalent laws in some other countries. But disabling region codes on your DVD playback device in order to otherwise legally play a DVD disc is perfectly legal.