On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 10:15:46 -0400, you wrote:

>You'll find that many of the people on this list will not help you. =20
> At some point an engineer designed the scheme you are attempting to =
circumvent, and we
>like to look after our own, so to speak.

>As far as overcoming multi-region encoding on DVDs, I suspect that there=
 are
>laws in the UK which would prevent you from disabling the copy-right =
protection
>scheme in your DVD players.  The owners of the work you are trying to =
play have
>given certian rights to DVD publishers to produce DVDs on a per region =
basis.
>By enabling your player to play a DVD published and sold in the US you =
are
>denying the owner of the work the ability to determine who sells their =
work,
>what the royalties are, etc, etc.
I have no problem with denying companies the right to rip people off
by creating  captive markets. In some places (I thought that included
the US, obviously not), this attempt to  control supply and fix prices
is illegal.=20

>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. =20
>While that may be 'legal' in a
>particular country, it is certianly unethical and/or immoral. =20
I think you are in the minority here - we are not talking about
software piracy but the right of the consumer to buy and use products
they want wherever they want. I've never heard that being described as
unethical before!
In the specific case of DVD, I, and I'm sure many others,  would
strongly disagree. Region-coding is unquestionably bad for the
consumer and in the long run probably also bad for the industry. If
people across the world can by DVDs from anywhere it will almost
certainly increase overall sales, thus benefitting the authors (as
opposed to the corporations who only care about increasing their cut).
Commercial organisations like the MPAA should not be allowed to
manipulate the market and enjoy legal backing to support what is
effectively blatant illegal price-fixing.
Region coding is such a dumb, anti-consumer  concept that it
absolutely DESERVES to be broken, legally or otherwise, if only to
show these corporations that consumers are not prepared to be
exploited by them. Us engineers are also consumers, and I personally
would have no problem whatsoever in using my skills as an engineer to
protect my rights as a consumer and I'm sure I'm not alone here.=20
If they get away with this one, what's next?=20
I have huge admiration for people like the OpenDVD guys
(www.opendvd.org)  who are standing up for the rights of the consumer
against  the huge corporations, with their legal bullying tactics and
campaign of misinformation.

>(unless of course
>it is a corporation whose copyright you are breaking, they have no =
rights, and
>we love our double-standards too much to think clearly.)
The fact that it is a corporation just means they are big and
unethical enough to be able to get laws passed to protect their own
interests.=20

 =20

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