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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.'"
They could just release the same version of the DVD simultaneously in all regions?
After all, if they simply junked region codes, we'd have Studios complaining about people importing foreign versions of movies for which the hold "exclusive North American rights"
The whole codes thing just seemed to smack of a money grab anyway. More or less the equivalent of trade barriers. Consider this approach:
- Trader A buys DVD in country X for $n
- Trader A sells DVD in country Y for $n+m
Hmmmm. Seems like a nice, free-trade policy that anyone in the Enron Adminstration would support. But codes _try_ to prevent that free trade, saying, hey, you can't sell it over here.
I think the producers of coded DVDs should be sued under WTO rules as prohibiting fair trade.
...tizzyd
The big studios won't give up without a fight, even though it benefits them in no way to keep the rest of the world waiting.
It's never made sense to me just why they make us (The UK) wait so long for movies after their release in the US, when no changes are required (except maybe a couple of censorship issues). All it means is that if the movie is crap, we hear about it well in advance and then don't go and see it.
Nice plan!
Pirates can drive a cart through the holes in the release schedule whether there's region codes or not, but the holes in the release schedules will still be there whether the region codes are in place or not.
Doing additional dubs and subtitling takes time, making simultaneous release worldwide somewhat tricky, unless you plan on delivering a "one size fits all" product, or holding up the release of an essentially finished and ready for Market X product until the product is ready for Markets A-Z. One size fits all product means either limiting content to the most restrictive censorship laws in all the regions you want to distribute in. Holding up the release date until all are ready means movies will lose their currency and timeliness.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Piracy is obviously a problem but I wonder how much an issue is due to legal sales from one region to another.
I regularly buy region 1 DVDs and have them shipped to the UK. I don't believe I am doing anything legally wrong and certainly don't believe it is morally wrong. This gives me a DVD months earlier than I can normally get it locally and its often cheaper as well even taking postage into acount.
Strange how this trade wasn't mentioned in the article at all....
wot no sig
Let's be realistic here, if Blockbuster complains about it, the rest of the rental business is not likely to hold views that are a lot different. And together they certainly have the clout to make region codes go away.
Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
The difference is that, without region codes, they'd more or less HAVE to release them at about the same time, because international commerce would make it possible and legal anyway.
As it stands, region codes are what allow the staggered release dates to work -- sure, the American version is out, but that doesn't do Joe British Consumer any good because the *AVERAGE* DVD consumer doesn't have a region-free DVD player (the average Slashdot poster is apparently another story).
But yes, of course they could release all the regions on the same date (or very close, instead of months apart). But at that point, of course, you have to wonder what's the point of regions at all?
This is really about creating artificially closed (or nearly closed) markets, so a cheaper supply or a lower demand in Country X doesn't affect the price in Country Y. That would be the case regardless of release dates. Piracy is tied to the release date disparities as much as the region codes, but the market for pirated discs would be diminished IF you could just order a legal copy from elsewhere rather than wait for the local release.
Yet another front in the battle over Globalization, I guess. I guess the movie industry has the numbers to justify this scheme as more profitable than worldwide simultaneous releases (or nearly so). I guess they only pull these long delays for movies that do well? If I were them, I'd certainly want crap movies to hit all the markets at about the same time, lest the people in Country Y have a few months to hear from Country X that "Tomb Raider: The Push-Up Bra of Life" defies the laws of physics by managing to suck AND blow, and end up not renting/buying it...
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
That's easy, if a DVD is available in one region, but not in another Blockbuster can't sell it there. By the time the DVD is released in that region, many people interested in seeing the movie will have already downloaded it. That means less revenue for blockbuster.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
No, you can't stop the people who are actually pirates with lawsuits. The pirates that "drive carts and horses" through the holes in these ridiculous release schedules are the kind that are really pirates. That is, they're really criminals. With guns. Like organized crime.
The MPAA/RIAA has done a good job of brainwashing willfully ignorant people into thinking that "pirate" means some harmless 15 year old kid with pimples that's downloading all the latest releases for their own use. They're not pirates, they're just punks with no money. Pirates really cause problems. There really are pirates and they really are selling bootlegs and they really can be dangerous criminals. They're the ones that are actually pressing illegal copies of games, music, and DVDs and selling them for huge profits. It's like a whole business model and it takes coordinated law-enforcement efforts to bust the operations.
I've always wondered when someone of consequence would wake up and point out that DVD region encoding is a HUGE catalyst for overseas piracy. If they run a profiteering racket by not releasing a DVD for months (or ever) in certain countries (so as to prevent market saturation and allow them to, effectively, sell 5 or 6 "different" copies of the same, often unchanged, movie over a period of years, each at a full price because you have to buy your own special regionalized version) it's just a huge enabler for people who want to sell bootlegs.
Think about it. If the movie has been out for three months in Japan and is selling used for 1/3 of the original price, why should I have to wait for them to release it in the U.S. and have to pay full price only because it's "region encoded". It's a scam, plain and simple, and the pirates are having a field day with it.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
It should be obvious to anyone that given the choice always buy the region 1 DVD player.
no, in europe, given the choice, always buy the multiregion player that can play anything. virtually all our machines are multiregion these days.
afaik, the problem with buying plain region 1 players is a) sourcing them and b) they probably only support ntsc, and not pal and secam that much of the rest of the world uses.
dave