Slashdot Mirror
Blockbuster Chief: End DVD Region Codes
Xesdeeni writes "Blockbuster's President/COO Nigel Travis has called for the elimination of the DVD region code. At issue is the situation when a movie is released in one country several months before it is released in another. He points out that pirates 'can drive a cart and horses through these holes in the release schedule.'"
"He points out that pirates 'can drive a cart and horses through these "
What sort of landlubbin pirates be these?
A real pirate sails the high seas on a fine pirate ship. I'd keel haul these donkey driving pirates, then make them walk the plank!
How Ironic. The region codes where created to "make it possible to release a title on different occations". Now the core problem is that movies are in fact released on different occations in different parts of the world.
Well, there you have it -- region coding is an unpatriotic scheme cooked up by people who are on the side of the terrorists!
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Hey, don't let that stop her. It didn't stop my wife.
My wife is nuts for the band Roxette, but they don't distribute their music in the States anymore because of how the recording industry in the US screwed them over. So when she heard Roxette was releasing new music videos on DVD, she asked me if she would be able to play European DVDs on our player, and I had to explain to her about the region coding.
One week later, we had a brand new DVD player, region free, auto-detecting PAL/NTSC, fresh from Ebay, and her coveted Roxette DVD a week later.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
What the hell is wrong with you? All you had to do is tell him your a bona fide Slashdot alumni.
/joke/
Then that stuffy looking Hi-Fi salesman would have riped off his button down shirt and tie and revealed his cape and BSD insignia lycra tights.
He would have then led you to the revolving fireplace-secret entrance, that leads to the basement where where all the Christman elves work fastidiously on multi-zone DVD playes of all types. That run Linux! That have big stickers that say "No way in hell even remoteley do these players have anythig to do with Microsoft!"
Or maybe he would have just said "Slash-who?"
--
...copy protection only hurts and inconveniences legitimate users, but not the pirates? Who would've thought!
(Sheesh.)
-Rob
I have to go rent several DVDs from blockbuster!:) At least it gives the MPAA less money than buying it.
If Disney has it's way, not only won't region codes be removed, but if you try to play a disc in a player for a different region, it'll self destruct.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
If we don't have region-free DVDs, then the terrorists have already won.
Mars?
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Guantanamo Bay. There are actually only two physical Region 8 DVDs in existence; they're a copy of "Gigli" which is shown to "enemy combatants" to break down their willpower, and one of "Ishtar", which they get to watch as a reward for spilling the beans.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
they have electricty in latvia?
Sancho? Is that you?
Maxxx Orbison: What's your name, again?
Sancho: I am Sancho.
Maxxx Orbison: Look, I get a lot of people auditioning all the time. What makes you think that you'd be good enough for porno?
Sancho: I am Sancho.
Maxxx Orbison: Great... but what do you do?
Sancho: What do I do? I am Sancho.
Maxxx Orbison: And...?
Sancho: And there are many Jeffs in the world, and many Toms as well. But I... am Sancho.
Maxxx Orbison: And...?
Sancho: Are you Sancho? No you are not. Neither is Scott Baio Sancho. Frank Gifford is not Sancho. But I...
Maxxx Orbison: You... are Sancho!
Sancho: That's right.
Maxxx Orbison: Okay, you're hired.
What's funny about this is, what got me started wanting a region-switching DVD player is the fact that Orgazmo is only available in region 2 DVD.
El riesgo vive siempre!
It was such a nice buisness - get US release, ...
...
copy it with some extra compression and
remove region 1 lock and sell it in Europe
couple of months before EU release
And there are already multi-region DVDs
Very funny, with one serious flaw; no *way* would people who loved BSD be able to cooperate with the elves making Linux-based DVD players.
He'd sooner sell you a Windows-based palladium-enabled DVD player that sent a record of every film you watched to Bill Gates, who in turn would inform the MPAA or whoever that you'd attempted to skip the Basque-language copyright warning on your 'Fellowship of the Ring' 14-disc special edition DVD, and have your dog killed.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
Aw boo-hoo. Copyright warnings and an animated logo. Life must suck to be you.
Let me tell you the meaning of the word pain, mister. The widescreen version of Babe has TEN MINUTES of unskippable previews for such fine films as "The Cat in the Hat" and some "Beethoven" sequel, and some others that scarred me too badly to remember.
I would pay EXTRA to just have to watch copyright warnings and an animated logo.
Be who you are...and be it in style!
If Disney had its way, at the end of every DVD, the Player would connect to the internet and dump you in a gift shop.
Naaah! U$S 100 million movies has no money left to pay for that kind of luxury. Perhaps for the deluxe collector wrapped-in-human-skin edition...
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Obviously, Blockbuster just wants to rent movies to the people on the International Space Station, and can't figure out which region they should be offering.