Region 1 to 2 & PAL the new 10-hour Panasonic DVD-LS93 Costco DVD player?

So how well do you speak Japanese? Perhaps the japanese words for 'rule' and
'law' are the same...

--
Cheers,
Bev
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Calling someone an asshole for being rude to a telemarketer
is like accusing someone who's shot a burglar in his home
of being a poor host." -- W.S.Rowell

 

So name one country in which region-coding has the force of law.
And be specific about what the exact law is that makes region-coding a
legal requirement.

Region-coding was a business agreement between the DVD Consortium and
the studios.

I didn't say it was. It's the only one that's relevant to the issue of
region-coding, however.

-- jayembee

 

No, primarily it was about protecting distribution rights in different parts of
the world. Two examples:

(1) When Cameron started going way over budget with TITANIC, Fox
sold the North American distribution rights to Paramount. It was in both
companies' interests to issue the DVDs with region-coding so that
people within Paramount's distribution market wouldn't buy the Fox DVD
from elsewhere, and people within Fox's market wouldn't buy the Paramount
release.

(2) A company owning a film might want to sell the rights to different companies
in different parts of the world. When Criterion first released SEVEN SAMURAI on
DVD, it was issued without region-coding. Toho complained, saying that Criterion
didn't pay them for world rights, only North American rights, so Criterion had
to re-issue it coded as Region 1 only. It makes sense from Toho's perspective,
because a hypothetical European label might not want to pay as much for the
Region 2 rights if they know that their customers could purchase a Criterion
copy instead.

-- jayembee

 

Like I said, those that have the DMCA stuff in their copyright law.

The anti circumvention provisions in their DMCA sections of their copyright law.

Irrelevant to whether it is NOW covered by the DMCA stuff in their
copyright law which certainly came after the use of region coding.

I didnt say you did.

Not that 'write software' claim you made.

Thats not the only approach to circumvention that is
proscribed under the DMCA stuff in the copyright law.

 

Well. That is certainly a convincing argument.
Thanks for the insight.

 

That wasnt the original intended use of region coding.

Thats the real reason for region coding.

 

Yours in spades.

No thanks for that pathetic excuse for bullshit.

 

Such a powerful argument. Are you a lawyer?

 

There were two reasons given by the studios, though both were about
distribution, and neither was actually the real reason.

They were releasing the DVDs in some countries while the movie was still
in theaters in other countries. They wanted to avoid damaging ticket
sales. The second reason was as you stated.

The real reason is so they can charge more for DVDs in some countries
than others, and avoid a gray market scenario. Unlike Levi Strauss, who
can't prevent their clothes from fitting consumers in other countries,
the studios could prevent their DVDs from working in other countries, at
least for the most part.

Note that there is another layer or protection, RCE, which will prevent
some Region 1 DVDs from playing even on DVD players which have region
coding disabled.

And of course many DVD players sold in NTSC countries, will not play PAL
DVDs, and vice-versa. Not an issue in the U.S. where very few people buy
multi-system TVs, or scan converters, but a big deal in some other areas
of the world.

Thankfully, some manufacturers have made it easy to disable both region
coding as well as the PAL/NTSC switching, and some have made it easy to
turn off Macrovision as well.

 

You really are an ignorant little **** aren't you.

PLONK

 

Well you must mean Panasonic USA law. Because here in
Europe almost every Panasonic dealer know that if he cannot
remove the "region lock" from the Dvd player he sells, he won't
sell many. And so, almost every Panasonic dealer here in
Europe sell "region unlocked" Dvd Player.

And the Panasonic european distributors also knows that fact
very well. So guess where the Panasonic dealers find
the "how to" to unlock the dvd players they sell ?

 

They are not hard to unlock, but unlike models from other manufacturers,
they can't be unlocked by the consumer via a secret combination of
presses of certain keys of the remote. A dealer will have no trouble
unlocking them.

The manufacturers don't like the region coding any more than the
consumers do, but they have to do it. This doesn't mean that they have
to make it hard to defeat.

 

Region coding came about because of the importing of LPs and CDs
from overseas to be sold in the US. A great many of these were NOT
available in the US, but there were US companies that had
distribution rights for these titles in NA.

So to combat importing of DVDs from other countries the regional
coding was implemented. As you can see by the many ways you can
circument this it did not work out the way the movie companies had
hoped.

There is also the legacy licensing of films so that different
companies have the rights to distribute them in their own countries
- all of the licensing brings in $$$$$$$s to the industry - so
the ability to import and sell a DVD from anywhere was another
reason for this. It's all about the money.

Bill

 

All very vague. Can you even *attempt* to specify what sections of the DMCA make
circumventing region-coding a crime?

How about you actual provide some specifics?

-- jayembee

 

The only reason they agreed to do it in the first place was because the studios
insisted that without it, they wouldn't provide any content to be played on the
players. Of course now that DVDs are pretty much the bread-and-butter of the
movie industry, it would be interesting to see the player manufacturers decide,
en masse, to stop coding the players. Somehow, I doubt that the studios would
just decide to stop making DVDs -- they'd be shooting themselves in the foot.

-- jayembee

 

are you sure it wasnt about maximising the ability to sell DVD's at maximum
price in each country, rather than being reduced to the the lowest price
(usually USA or far East?)

 

This "catch all" section would cover it:

Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

`(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL
MEASURES- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that
effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The
prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the
end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this
chapter.


Since the region codes were designed to limit access to a work
circumventing them would fall directly under 1201 (a) (1) (A)

 

Nope. Even you should be able to find the anti circumvention provisions.

Didnt say it was a crime, JUST that circumvention is ILLEGAL.

Even you should be able to find the anti circumvention provisions.

 

Varys with the manufacturer, some have a real
financial interest in the success of region coding.

No they dont.

And plenty of the lower end manufacturers
dont even bother including it at all anymore.

 

Do not change region in Panasonic DVD players!

Leave it to the unimaginative to think this way - LOL.

The easiest way is to find a working unlock for the player.

www.rpc1.org and www.videohelp.com have links to many such for
various players, but some brands just don't have as much work done to
unlock them (eg. Pioneer players, too).

The forums are good for asking those who do understand firmware at a
low level to see if they're willing to work on the player for you, too.
sometimes, this will help.