Well, all your arguments are centered around the belief that the copyright owner
has no right to determine who gets the work and how.

Copyright is more than just preventing someone from making copies of your work.
It is also the control you exert over the distribution, medium and form of your
work.

By perpetuating the fallacy that you are justified in overcoming copyright
restrictions because of "poor quality/distribution/decisions" you are eroding my
rights as well.

-Adam

(specific responses below)

Bond Peter S-petbond1 wrote:
> 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).

You contend that controlling distribution between regions is not the right of
the creator of the work?

> 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.

> 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.

> 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.  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.

These are what I would call rationalizations.  Rationalization is nothing more
than a poor excuse to do something you believe to be wrong.

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

It again comes down to the choice the work holder makes.  Whether you feel
justified in doing so or not, the simple fact is that they have chosen to
exercise their rights in this way.  You are trampling on their rights.  You may
feel justified in doing so, but you are still doing it.  You are at the mercy of
the copyright holder.  When you are put in the position of needing to protect
your own copyrights it will be interesting to see how you act.

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