Remember:

When you buy a DVD you are _not_ buying the media. You are buying the rights
(license) to use the content, under whatever restrictions the copyright
holder cares to name. If one of those restrictions states that it may only
be viewed in North America (or Antarctica for that matter), that is
perfectly valid.

While I personally think it is stupid for the content providers to be
fracturing the marketplace as they are, it is their right to do so.

As I said before, I for one will have nothing to do with this, except of
course to repeatedly get up on my soapbox about it :-)

I've added some more comments below....

Bob Ammerman
RAm Systems
(contract development of high performance, high function, low-level
software)


> Secondly, region coding on DVDs does not exist to prevent copyright
> protection, it exists to control distribution between regions, in much the
> same way as film releases are phased (we in the UK get films months after
> they have disappeared from cinemas in the US).

Yep,  again it is there choice to do this, even if we think it is stupid.

> Thirdly, the selection of R2 DVDs is fairly poor in comparison the
selection
> available in the US - we have perhaps 10% of the titles available.

Yep,  again it is there choice to do this, even if we think it is stupid.

> Fourthly, for reasons best known to the producers of the DVDs, we
generally
> end up with inferior (and significantly more expensive) discs than the US.

Yep,  again it is there choice to do this, even if we think it is stupid.

> Defeating region coding (as opposed to Macrovision, which is there for
copy
> protection) enables those of us who give a monkey's about the films we
watch
> (and, on a similar note, are allowed to watch by the BBFC - but that isn't
> my issue) to get hold of discs from the US that simply cannot be obtained
> anywhere else.  Still purchased, at (full?) retail price, from US
> distributors - so there is no theft going on.

When you purchase a DVD from the US you are purchasing a license to view it
in R1, not R2! So, you are still stealing the R2 license.

> The recent case over DeCSS
> has been a more interesting issue - those for it, said it enabled Linux to
> play DVDs.  Those against it pointed out (accurately) that it made it
easier
> to copy those same DVDs.  Modchips do not facilitate piracy.

> The one area that could be construed as dubious is that it reduces
revenues
> for the local distributors who wish to fob us off with sub-standard
> reproductions of films we wish to watch.  Quite frankly, if they reacted a
> little bit more sensibly - for example, by producing discs of equivalent
> quality to R1 releases - then the demand for modchips would disappear.

This is a very weak argument. The correct response is to just not buy
product that is viewed as inferior. The marketplace will eventually get it
right.

> > Now, I personally feel that it would be better if authors and
> > owners were more
> > open with their work.  But I certianly believe that if they
> > want to excercise
> > such control over it, and implement schemes to do so, then by
> > overcoming those
> > schemes one is essentially stealing from them.  While that
> > may be 'legal' in a
> > particular country, it is certianly unethical and/or immoral.

Amen, amen and amen.

> No theft is carried out.  No immoral behaviour goes on.  No copyrights are
> broken.

Yes, theft is carried out. This is theft of license, if you wil.

Yes, immoral behaviour goes on. Stealing is immoral.

Yes, copyrights are broken. Copyright allows the copyright owner to specify
the conditions under which the work can be used.

>The only thing that is unethical is the distribution of substandard
> product at 50% more than the cost of the "identical" product n thousand
> miles away.

This is not unethical, it is perhaps stupid.

For example, airlines will sell the exact same seat to different groups of
people for wildly different prices. It is a basic principle of economics
that if you can split your market into segments you can make more money by
setting optimizing the price seperately in each segment because of
differences in the demand curve.


Whew....

Climbing down off of rather large soapbox. Sorry, but this really bothers
me!

Bob Ammerman
RAm Systems
(contract development of high performance, high function, low-level
software)

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