Some Things Just Tick Me Off
Sep 16th, 2006 by Don Ray
I wrote a while back that my DVD player had died. I found out that the place to take Sony equipment is a shop that is just past the lobby to the Occidental Hotel. I took my player in Friday and they are going to tell me next week if it can be fixed and how much.
In the article I wrote, I talked about multi-region players being needed to be able to play both US and Latin American DVDs. Dick commented about new problems coming up and that multi-region may not be good enough.
Today in engadget, I find an article telling me that a new technology is being prepared that will prevent the playing of DVDs in regions other than the region the DVD was created for.
I have to say that I have no problem with companies doing anything to protect their copyrighted products from being copied. I do however, have a big problem with the concept that a DVD has to be played in the region in which it is bought.
That means that a person couldn’t buy DVDs here and take them to the US for Christmas presents. Or what if a person is studying in college in a foreign country. He would not be able to buy a DVD and take it back to his home region when his time of study was over.
The idea of region codes on DVDs is a bad idea and I have never liked it. I think that if they want to develop technology that prevents piracy it should only address that. Would you buy a sweater in Ireland if you knew when it came into the US you couldn’t wear it anymore. Would you buy a watch if you knew that it would not tell time in another country?
This technology is going to expand to more than DVDs. It is planned for all the game players as well. It is the abusive power and extreme pricing of these companies that has created a market for Piracy. They really tick me off!
You so ELOQUENTLY express my thoughts exactly
Ditto on the TICK ME OFF !!
Dick
We need a revolt. No wonder people buy pirated copies. They will work on all machines.
The studios claim they need this protection because the DVDs are released in some regions before the film is released in other regions. They believe that the region code protects their profits.
I see the original region coding as the earliest form of Digital Rights (or Restriction) Management. Nowdays in the US under the Digital Copyright in the New Millenium Act, cirumventing the region codes is a Federal offense.
As you probably know from my blog entry http://tuxi.ripabe.net/?p=29, I’m with you on this. As one who has moved back and forth between regions, I’d like to be able to view the collection of movies that I have rights to view without having individual players for each region.
I had missed your post Tuxi, but I just read it. You are right and we are in complete agreement. The only way to solve the problem is to affect the profit line of the big companies. It is getting a lot of bad press. I am afraid I am just going to stay ticked off.
Don Ray,
I’ve now gone to the engadget site and read the article. We obviously need to keep old DVD drives alive as long as possible. If the DVD drive makers don’t place the RFID enquiry in firmware, there will be software which will not check the RFID to play the disk. It doesn’t seem to me that omitting a check would count as a technical measure to defeat the copyright protection.
Tuxi
I don’t intend to buy any new DVD player that incorporates thee new hardware.