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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.'"
The industry is going to hate it. Is Blockbuster big enough to complain loud enough?
I think they just might be.
Never confuse volume with power.
I honestly thought noone would stand for the DVD region system when it emerged... Hollywood have always previously had some technical excuse, but this time it was pure and simple profiteeering. Not that my DVD players aren't all Multi-region, but the principle of the thing.
Not being funny, but I thought that the region coding was ceasing to be a problem because a high percentage of the devices you buy now can circumvent it anyways.
What I'd like to see them doing is ending staggered releases worldwide and releasing everywhere on the same day.
tom-george.comBecause geeks rate higher t
Now whether having a standard no-code product instead of multiple regional products in the same language saves money for the DVD producers is another story, but he didn't mention that.
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 MPAA wants us to believe that region coding only existance is to allow them to release movies at different times in different parts of the world.
But why are old movies region encoded ?
Even DVDs of movies from the 60s and 70s are region coded !
The release schedule is the *only* reason I can see for region encoding. And since everyone and their dog can strip their DVD player of region restrictions, it's a useless 'feature' anyway.
Can somebody please enlighten me as to the benefits of region encoding? I simply cannot see how the movie industry makes more money by selling to certain people earlier.
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
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
"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!
This is why many big films like LOTR now have simultaneous International release. It was 6 months before Finding Nemo was released in the UK. I bitTorrented the film because I couldn't be bothered to wait that long. Needless to say when it did come out in the cinema I decided to go see Matrix Revolutions instead.
Most DVD Players now come with region unlock codes or are just plain chipped. The region 1 DVD's are also easily available in the UK (region 2)
All this makes region coding useless.
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.
I worked for the company for quite some time and there was a little incident regarding FOX and BBV that I would like to retell.
Blockbuster pretty much has deals with all the movie companies (profit sharing, things like that) but for a time FOX had refused to sign on with BBV. At the time FOX was just about to release Lake Placid for the rental market BBV had orginally slated the title as a "Guarenteed in Stock" title that means there would have been a ton of this title in the stores for rental and FOX would have cashed in quite nicely.
BBV wanted FOX to sign on like the other companies so they dropped the title from guarenteed status and ended up getting one or two of this title in each store effectively screwing FOX out of millions of dollars in rental revinue.
Needless to say they signed on shortly after.
I could see BBV pulling this off if they play hardball.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
In Europe (or at least, in the Netherlands), most DVD players are sold with a region coding. Usually, it is not too difficult to remove it, but then the warranty is void. Furthermore, you have to pay a fee for having it removed. If you want to buy a region free player, you really have to search. Some el-cheapo players are region free, and some really expensive ones too.
der Joachim
Geek runner, motorcyclist and professional know-it-all
The point of this is to assure everyone, including end users who aren't very mentally endowed can view the dvds they paid for, regardless of where they buy them. Especially take into consideration millitary families who move from place to place, DVD regioning is bad for all, but more bad for some than others. Sure, they'll be fine with swapping between the three dvd players they had to buy in the last 2 years to play all of their dvds, but that's not ideal, and there is always the problem of when one of them breaks.
The other part of this is that one would hope it could turn into a consumer digital rights stand where consumers demand to be able to do whatever they like with what they buy, but I doubt that will happen. Personally, I'm perfectly fine with them producing dvds that can't have previews skipped, that are region encoded, etc, but I do NOT think that law should require dvd player manufacturers to adhear to your will.
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
Just download DVD Region Free, it will let you play DVD's from any Region.
I travel back and forth from Europe all the time and unfortunately few of the DVDs that I have legitimately purchased will work both places whereas burned movies work just fine everywhere. For me it has been a pretty good reason NOT to buy DVD movies because if I PAY for them, it will only work half the time! I have had to search P2P networks for movies that I own on DVD because my "legal" copy won't work.
What post? The one you're carrying inside your rusty innards!
I went to an AV store recently (a specialty store, not Circuit City) and the conversation went like this:
me: do you sell multi-zone DVD players?
guy: no Sir, they're illegal in this country. (U.S.)
me: well, I'm surprised, some companies sell them on their website
guy: well, you can buy illegal drugs on the internet, Sir.
me: but they're companies in the U.S., one website said the company was based in Illinois.
guy: Even if it was legal, we wouldn't sell them. It hurts our economy. The movie people in Hollywood need that system to protect our movies.
me: protect them from what?
guy: piracy
me: but I'm trying to watch zone 2 movies that I legally purchased in Europe recently.
guy: I don't know about that...
And then I walked out. This is still the perception out there.
May be if Blockbuster calls for change it'll make a difference.
there's no place like ~
Last year I was in London on my Honeymoon. We ened up doing a lot of shopping and hit a few music/video stores. My wife, who had no idea what region codes were, started picking up a few DVDs that are not available in the US. (A couple of them were Eddie Izzard as I recall) She was very disappointed when I told her that these DVDs would not play in the DVD palayers at home without hacking them.
Whoever was distributing those DVDs LOST money since we can't buy them here (I've never seen them on shelves here and I didn't care enough about them to try to find them on Amazon). Really, what kind of business model is it to make it impossible to buy your product? Drop the region codes and they will probabily increase sales and kill a few pirates in the process!
[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...] - Larry Wall in Configure from the perl
This is price discrimination and happens all the time. Basically, you make the people who can (and are willing) to pay more for something pay more and the people who can pay less, pay less. (You maximize profits for both sections.)
Airline tickets for business travelers cost more because they can afford it. Don't want to stay over? Ticket will cost more. Prescription medication, too. Early adopters? Them, too.
This isn't wrong, per se. It is essential capitialism and does nothing to mitigate free trade.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
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!
The recording industry didn't take one _little_ thing into account - legislation in the countries that are supposed to be blocked from distribution by having different region codes.
So the whole region thing is not supported in some countries. I happen to live in one, a small country called Israel.
The outcome?
1. DVD Players legally sold in an already patched-to-RPC1 (region-free) state.
2. DVD Videotheques holding DVDs from just about every region code out there, 7 and 8 not excluded.
3. The few players that are sold in RPC2 state are sold with written instructions from the supplier on how to patch them to RPC1. In case you can't read, their help line will be happy to instruct you on how it's done.
4. Locally-licensed DVD's of hollywood films carry a region icon (which says region 2). A simple inspection with any ripping software confirms there is no encryption on the DVD.
I'll bet this is ignored by the law of most east-european countries, at least half west-european countries, and I don't even think I need to mention South America and the East.
And that's without mentioning the fact that any 6-year-old with a DVDR, CloneDVD and a certain 3rd party app I won't mention can reproduce a copyrighted DVD in less time than it takes me to write this comment.
So I fully agree with Mr. Blockbuster. The whole region idea was a bad idea which may or may not have initially set piracy back a bit, may or may not have returned the investment and saved a penny or two for the MPAA, and is nothing more than a complete nuisance today in most of the sane world. A little dialog box in CloneDVD or wherever saying "Reproducing this content is illegal in the United States. You are responsible for your actions. Press CANCEL to abort now or OK to continue" - like Roxio's CD Copier gives out for Audio CD's - would save everyone the time and hassle. Everyone INCLUDING the MPAA.
My 2 cents.
-
Could they also remove the friggin' un-skippable sections on DVDs? I have all 4 seasons of Futurama, for example, and at the start I am forced to sit through at least 60 seconds of copyright warnings for about 6 different countries followed by the 20th Century Fox animated logo. Ironically enough, because Fox decided not to do a different release for every region, the compulsory crap is twice as long because there is a warning for half of Europe, the UK and Australia and New Zealand.
It's a big step back for usability when the user can no longer control (i.e. use) the product the way they prefer to. With VHS we could skip trailers, copyright notices and assorted other bullshit - with DVDs they ram it down our throats. I mean, is there *anyone* of the millions of DVD owners who *actually* reads the copyright warnings *every single time* they come on? Are we too stupid to be allowed to skip the warnings if we choose, even though we've seen them a hundred times before? Surely it's enough that we can read the warnings if we want to, and that it is clear that we can do so.
The decisions made in the development of the DVD format smack of a cartel, not a collaboration between rivals.
Read Pynchon.
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!
Your comment almost makes sense.
Releasing regional versions as they are ready does not require (or benefit from) lock-out codes. If the initial release kills the market for localized versions, so much the better for the studio.
Doing away with lock-out codes would allow people in "other" markets to use (buy) the initial release if they choose. Currently their only choice is "piracy." Who does that help?
The only thing left standing is price-fixing.
-Peter
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)
As a retail store, I generally have more control over how the products change than any single consumer. When people complain about a product, I let the distributor or manufacturer know IMMEDIATELY. If I don't notice a change, I find other retail stores (competitors) and ask them if they're having similar issues, and if they are, ask them to complain as well.
Almost every complaint I've had in the past 6 months has been addressed pretty quick. But I would not complain if I didn't hear it from my customer base.
Blockbuster is doing the right thing in my opinion, but I doubt many of us here have complained to the retail stores about region encoding. Bitching and moaning at slashdot isn't a very good start. Tell Blockbuster (and Wal*Mart and Target and Borders and Tower) that you hate region encoding. Enough people complaining WILL make a difference!
I've even seen end customers bitch to the distributors and manufacturers to no avail, because most retail customers don't buy direct. I'm the customer of the distributor and they do listen.
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?"
--
With digital television, there is even the opportunity for consolidation. But do you think that anyone will want to let go their standard ? No way... It's sad to have to go through another VHS/Betamax debacle all over again. Some people/industries will never learn.
...copy protection only hurts and inconveniences legitimate users, but not the pirates? Who would've thought!
(Sheesh.)
-Rob
I could never understand why some big company has'nt taken on this before - WTO rules say that you can not put artificial barriers when trading, yet DVD region codes are exactly that.
Its a bit silly also when 99%* of DVD drives can take a 4 digit code just to multiregion them up...
Paul
* in my experience... no data dudes.
Where do I buy a DVD player that lets me skip the FBI warning and trailers? I would like to just play the movie I already paid for.
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
DVDs in different regions are sold for different prices. If DVDs were regionless then via the magic that is the Internet and FedEx, everyone would start buying DVDs from the cheapest marketplaces. Content producers would then be faced with a tough decision which would most likely result in DVDs not being sold in cheaper markets to protect their profits in the lucrative markets, or they'd sell them at full price in the cheaper markets which would just result in more piracy in those markets.
Personally I hate region codes (having friends/relatives in other region really sucks) but DVDs aren't the only thing subjected to the non-level playing field that is the global marketplace.
Outside the US, where most consumers watch a mixture of domestic and US produced content, multi-region players are the norm. I think I read that all players in New Zealand are multi-region, and I know for a fact it would be hard to get one here in the UK that isn't.
So it's mainly a problem for Blockbuster: they can't rent out an out-of-region DVD even if 90% of consumers can watch it, because the other 10% will cause them so much trouble.
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
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).
I rented Bruce Almighty for the family to watch. It's rated PG 13. The forced to watch preview is R. (unskippable American Wedding preview) I don't let the kids watch R material. I call that feature User Unfriendly. We knew to preview the DVD and skip the sex scene for the 9 year old. Too bad they make you wait so long running past the preview instead of skipping it.
It shouldn't be standard pratice to load a DVD in the player 10 minutes before turning on the TV just so the previews are over. It's very User Unfriendly.
Sombody fix the FF button on those DVD's! 5 seconds in a preview is usualy enough to tell if the movie and preview are something I do or do not want to watch. Forcing an unwanted age inapropiate offensive preview is as welcome as a goatse.cx link in a technical discussion. The previews should not be rated worse than the feature. R, X and XXX previews should not be on G, PG or PG-13 features. Thank goodness the worst I have seen so far is R previews on PG-13 films. But like the seven words you can't say on TV, I don't expect them to keep to the curent high but dropping standards.
That alone has kept me from buying several DVD's I have rented.
Also ditch the crazy attempts at copy protection. I rented Legaly Blonde 2. The FBI warning got stuck in an endless loop on both a standalone DVD player (Classic brand) and a computer.
Anybody else experiance this?
I returned the defective DVD for exchange. I was told 8 others were returned the same day for the same problem and an exchange would not fix the problem. Copy protection is lost revenue. I got a refund as I couldn't view it. It also caused extra overhead for Hollywood Video the handle the consumer complaints. Third, there is no way I would consider buying it later because I already know all copies are broken. I also suspect anything else by the same studio may be plagued by the same ailment so I avoid that studio's work, just as I avoid CD's by those dabbing in audio copy protection. It might work, It might not, but once opened, it's almost impossible to return. Why bother?
A look on the good side is several of the DVD's I have bought lately list right on the cover they are all region! This is limited to old TV programs so far and not movies, but hopefully that day will get here. The down side is due to the music copyright issues the original theme songs are removed. Bummer! A new generation may view these classics and never know about the original theme songs. I guess they don't want people to enjoy the music as it was intended. There are some people out there that do want to sell DVD's and have taken steps to make them user friendly. They even took steps to keep the price reasonable by not paying inflated ASCAP prices so the DVD is reasonably priced. Too bad a reasonable price could not be reached with the music copyright holder to include the theme songs.
FYI the altered DVD's are The Beverly Hillbillies and The Andy Griffith Show.
The truth shall set you free!
Why think illegal? I live in Argentina (Zone 4), I dont rent from BB from a long time for this exact problem, all the movies they rent are about 3-5 months late. What I mean, BB is not the only video rental store around, smaller ones buy the movies in USA and rent those, there is no law that prohibits that besides loyalty to the local movie distributors, which my guestimate is: only BB has...
NEOCA - Custom LED Flashlights
Some player manufacturers thought ahead, and provided means for at least those who know how to wield a soldering pencil to do something about region encoding.
One example I can think of is that of our player. It didn't take me long at all to find this page which describes, in disgustingly clear detail, how to make it region-switchable AND turn off that nasty Macrovision drenn.
Region encoding was a silly idea from the start. There's just too many ways around it.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Wow, this is timely. I just posted a GrepLaw article about the subject of region codes.
Unfortunately, the CEO of Blockbuster was not interested in whether or not region codes were fundamentally evil. He was only concerned with the fact that their implementation caused an increase in piracy and a decrease in his revenues. I like the irony of the fact that a system that the MPAA created to impose unfair pricing has actually benefitted their illicit competitors. Here is hoping the MPAA continues to shoot itself in the foot.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
In a nutshell, Blockbuster tells studios that make movies with objectionable content (sex or anti-religious, mostly) "Make a 'family-friendly' cut of the film minus that content or we won't carry it at all"; they then carry this "rated" version which lacks the content from the original theatrical release, but they get to blame the director/studio if anyone notices. Some directors who have sufficient clout with their studios refuse, which is why you won't find some popular films there.
This should be common knowledge; try http://pintday.org/archive/20031007.shtml for a few links.
--
Twoflower
Ain't it the same way there in the States?
But, this could be an isolated incident.
Far from it, many DVD players in europe (and around the world) are either multi-region out of the box or easily set to multi region by entering 'secret codes' into special hidden areas of the machine's set up menu. For the rest that aren't easily switched (which are oddly the more expensive 'branded' models), there are companies that can modify them to be region free.
I think region coding really only restricts Americans, the rest of the planet happily carries on with little if any notice of region coding at all.
Tk
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
It's most definately the disc. On an NTSC disc the movie will either be encoded at 29.97fps or ~23.9fps at 720x480. On a PAL/SECAM disc it's 25fps at (I believe) 720x540.
The reason for the two different frame rates for NTSC is that the player can do some scan line magic to convert the ~24fps to 29.97fps but retain the better compression of dealing with progressive frames.
The short answer is that there is definately a difference in the discs
-matt
I just read/skimmed through all 103 posts modded 3 or higher, and I can't believe that not one person mentioned the DMCA/EUCD.
The problem isn't that the DVD's are region coded. The problem is that the DVD players are intentionally crippled not to be able to play out-of-region disks. But even that is merely a symptom. All manufacturers WANT to produce all-region players - they'd sell better. The DISEASE is stupid LAWS that force manufacturers to produce crippled products. The disease is laws like the DMCA and EUCD.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.