Boing Boing reader Norman Shetler says,
An interesting side-note on the debate around Stephen Soderbergh's movie "Bubble." While it's certainly a commendable experiment to release a film on three different platforms simultaneously, bypassing age-old, rigid marketing techniques, I was surprised to see that the DVD of Bubble is listed as being Region 1 encoded.
While this is obviously (and thankfully) not an issue for most people with a keen eye on international DVD releases, it still uses (and thereby supports) a technology which essentially was created to keep us (non-Americans) from watching films released on DVD in the United States.
This whole region-coding thing is a disaster from a cultural POV, considering how many films are released exclusively in the US, and there are LOTS of them (including a substantial amount of European films), and if some of the bigwigs in Hollywood had their say, we wouldn't even be allowed to buy them in the first place (never mind that you are not allowed to openly sell them here, not even on ebay).
Additionally, there's the whole issue of computer DVD-drives — only being able to switch the regions up to five times before it's locked. WTF is that about?
From a marketing standpoint I understand the idea of implementing a region code. But since multi-region players are freely available in Europe (even though, to the best of my knowledge, they aren't allowed to be marketed as such) why bother? Will the eventual European release cover all countries? Will the DVD be available day-and-date over here as well? Who's interests are being protected by using this restriction?
I don't know for a fact that the dvd *is* actually region-1-encoded, so far I only have the cover scan to go by.
DVD Link on Amazon.
Previous BB posts on Stephen Soderbergh's Bubble: Link
Reader comment: Gary says,
Although your burner and software may tell you that you can only change your drive's region 5 times you have full control. It just takes a bit of work research. Link
Reader Comment: Ben Laurie says,
Not sure where "here" is for Norman, but certainly in the UK region-unlocked DVD players are freely available. Even from Amazon. They're also damn cheap! Also, no idea what he means by "can't sell them openly" – see, for example: Link OK, it isn't "Bubble", but it is region 1 and they'll deliver worldwide. Not that I disagree with the foolishness of region-encoding, just wanted to point out that its completely ineffective in the UK, and always has been.
Apart from PS2 games, that is – I want Katamari Damacy, but it doesn't work on UK PS2s!
Reader comment: Chris McMahon says,
Thankfully in Australia region-free DVD players are generally the norm, with even large retail chains openly selling them region-free out-of-the-box. DVD player manufacturers are contractually bound by the DVD licensing terms to implement RPC (Regional Playback Control). They get around this by having a 3rd party modify their players before sale at no extra cost to the consumer. In fact region-free players are so widespread that any manufacturer selling non-modified players is at a commercial disadvantage in the Australian retail market.
The A.C.C.C (the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission – a national government watchdog organisation) is on the side of consumers on this issue. In a statement from 11th May 2001 (available in PDF on their website here), the Commissioner of the ACCC stated, under the section "DVDs & THE TRADE PRACTICES ACT";
"The Commission believes RPC is anti-competitive with Australian consumers lacking a choice of DVD videos and possibly paying higher prices." (…) "The RPC prevents the importation of DVDs from smaller filmmakers around the world. Their sales are generally too small to justify catering for region 4. This reduces competition to the advantage of US studios." (…) "The essential point here is that in the Commission's view, there is an attempt to use copyright laws for a purpose related to areas beyond their real purpose. This coding system is a mechanism to allow price discrimination, not to protect the inherent rights of Intellectual Property owners."
Buying and importing DVD movies from other regions is also legal for personal use, under the Copyright Act 1968. More information about RPC on the ACCC's website can be found here.
Reader comment: Anil Kandangath says,
It may interest you to know that *all* the DVDs produced by the Indian movie industry (including Bollywood and the regional movies) are region free.
Reader comment: Norman Shetler says:
I apologize for the lack of basic information on my part. I live in Austria and should have clarified this, as well as the fact that much of what I was complaining about applied to Germany, Switzerland and Austria. I'm sure there are similar problems in other European countries but I have no details on this. In any case, there have been numerous instances of people being sued (and even having their homes raided) for privately selling Region 1 (and in one instance, a Region 4) DVDs on ebay.de. One was even sued for using the cover-art of the Region 1 disc! And others for selling (legally) imported music CDs before they were released in Europe.
While it's doubtful anyone would make a fuss over someone selling, say, "Bubble Boy" on R1, it's still, essentially, illegal in these countries (dunno about UK…).
But to return to the point I was actually trying to make: I find it saddening that a unique and in ways even visionary approach to releasing and marketing a film is marred by the most useless and ridiculous forms of restriction. I realize that slapping regional coding on the DVD of "Bubble" essentially doesn't change a thing, but symbolically I find it regretful.
link, quite old and in german, but the copyright laws certainly haven't changed for the better since then: Link (detailed article about regional coding, copyright and various examples of "crackdowns" on sellers of R1 discs)
