DeCSS, crypto, law, and economics

[Alan]

On Tue, 2003-01-07 at 21:09, bear wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Jan 2003, alan wrote:
> 
> 
> > Not to mention the two seasons of Futurama that are only available
> > on Region 2 PAL DVDs.  (Or the other movies and TV shows not allowed
> > by your corporate masters.)  "They Live" is another film only
> > available from Region 2.  Maybe it tells too much about the movie
> > industry...
> 
> This makes an interesting point.  While the argument that market
> segmenting may increase the ability to provide material in all
> markets, the fact is that given region coding, the producers of
> this stuff *DON'T* provide the material in all markets.
> 
> If their argument, that the increased market size available with
> region coding enables economies of scale, were actually the driving
> force behind region coding, there should be no such thing as content
> available in one region that is unavailable in another.
> 
> Thus their actions betray that they have a different motive. Therefore
> the public skepticism regarding the truth of their assertions about
> their motivations seems fairly solidly grounded on fact.

The reasoning seems to be pure greed.  If you look at the zones, they
are more economic than anything else.

Another theory is it allows them to edit movies for different markets. 
(Such as what Miramax does to movies out of Hong Kong.  Region codes
help prevent the average viewer from being able to see the film in the
original form and realize just how much they screwed up the film.)

Another argument for the regions is the differing formats for TV
signals. (NTSC v.s. PAL.)  It is a bogus argument as you can find DVD
players that will convert the signal with little or no problem.  (Apex
produced one that was incredibly cheap and works great.)

> ( who likes a fair amount of stuff that is only available
>   coded for region 6 ).

You made me have to look up what region 6 was.  (Here is a good
reference for those of you who don't know or remember:
http://www.ilovedvd.co.nz/regioncodes.asp )

Most of the titles i have seen from China are region free.  (Hong Kong
makes a good deal of money from Americans who want to see Chinese films
uncut.  I know, because they are making a fortune off of me...)

-- 
Alan <alan at clueserver.org>


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