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“You Must Live In North America To Read This Post”

.: My dad asked my sister what she wanted for Christmas, and she sent him a list of television documentaries — Cosmos, The Blue Planet, and Life on Earth. Yesterday, she tried watching the first episode of Life on Earth only to meet an unforeseen obstacle: all the DVDs were region 2 encoded. The blame cannot be attributed to our father, for he had simply ordered the only version of Life on Earth available (excluding this unrelated movie and these listings, which are actually just used copies of the region 2 sets), ignorant of any regional lockout mechanisms.

.: Ostensibly to retain regional market prices; more efficiently time release dates; restrict any material that may be illegal in other countries; and/or avoid “stepping on someone else’s toes” (but not, curiously, to prevent piracy, as you’d think), the BBC in their infinite wisdom decided to lockout Life on Earth from every market outside of Europe. This makes sense if you don’t think about it.

.: But, for the sake of this post, let’s think about it. What possible benefit is it to the BBC to market a box set that’s viewable only to Europeans? We paid money for the set (I don’t know how much, but probably somewhere around $40 – $60), so why can’t we watch what’s in the box? Perhaps they wish to preserve some sort of price discrimination scheme, where a British version would cost $70 and the American version would cost only $40. It makes sense for them to want to prevent British people from simply importing the American version and pocketing the $30 in savings. But here’s the thing: they don’t sell an American version.

.: Every other program by David Attenborough is available for sale in America: Life in the Undergrowth, The Life of Mammals, The Living Planet, The Life of Birds.

.: What possible reason is there for not selling Life on Earth in region 1? We’ve already excluded price discrimination as a moot point, since there’s no difference in prices if there is only one price. As for launching the set at different dates around the world — the damn thing was first broadcast in 1979, for crap’s sake. This isn’t the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie with all the worldwide hype and anticipation that comes with it and all the potential marketing failures; it’s a freakin’ documentary. My sister’s copy of The Blue Planet was distributed by BBC America and Warner Brothers. It was first released in region 2 on Dec 3, 2001 and later in region 1 on Aug 27, 2002. Why they even waited that long, I don’t know. Life on Earth was released in region 2 on September 1, 2003, but the box we have has a 2005 copyright. Apparently they’re waiting a bit longer than they did with The Blue Planet, but I honestly don’t know if they ever plan on releasing it here.

.: The third point, about restricting material that may be illegal in other countries, will receive only this curt, self-referential dismissal.

.: Now, the only possible explanation rests with the fourth point, about distributors wishing to avoid stepping on each others toes and whatnot. BBC and BBC America/Warner Brothers obviously have different distribution rights. But this seems to tie back in with price discrimination. If BBC releases a $70 box set in Europe and BBC America releases a $40 version of the same set, then people will begin importing the BBC America version instead of the BBC version, which would cost somebody some where some money. Again, this is understandable, and there’s already a word for the motives behind setting up schemes to prevent such toe-stepping: greed. It inconveniences the hell out of all consumers to have to deal with regional lockout. The only benefits are to producers and distributors, who can jack up the price of two identical products in one region and sell the product for what it’s actually worth in another region. Want to prevent toe-stepping? Sell both box sets for $40 (or the British equivalent).

.: As it is, my sister is left with an expensive DVD box set that she is unable to play. Her only legal options at this point are to 1.) return the set for a refund 2.) buy a new DVD player that can handle multiple regions or 3.) move to Europe, where she’ll also have to buy a new DVD player.

.: Option one clearly doesn’t solve the problem. Option two is unreasonable for a consumer who has already legally purchased the DVDs. Option three is monumentally stupid and deserves no further comment. There is, technically, a forth option; however, thanks to myopic and ill-conceived laws, this perfectly feasible (if not time-consuming) option is illegal. Here’s what I could do to help my sister:

~I could kill a good two hours ripping each DVD onto my hard drive, stripping the noxious region locks and removing the ineffective copy-protection. It would take a bit longer, since my hard drive doesn’t have enough space to hold all of them, but with more time I could cleverly shuffle each bit of data to make it all fit.

~I could then burn the ripped DVD files on wholly new DVDs that would be playable anywhere.

.: That’s it. That’s all I have to do, and my sister would be able to actually watch her legally purchased DVDs. But my doing that would be considered illegal, not because I copied the DVDs — that would be fair use; you’re allowed to make private backups of your media — but because I would have to circumvent the ineffective encryption on the discs to make the copies. It’s all rather curious. To wit, you’re allowed to make private copies of your DVDs, but you’re not allowed to break the anti-copying mechanisms while doing so. Thanks, DMCA!

.: The irony of all this is that these copy restriction measures have done nothing to quell piracy. Instead of my dad forking over $40+ for the whole box set that doesn’t work, he could have downloaded all the episodes from here in a couple of days — probably the same amount of time it took to deliver the damn thing from overseas. Instead of preventing piracy, which was already illegal, the DMCA has been used to buttress a ridiculously stupid business model that would have fallen along time ago without it. This isn’t the difference between PAL and NTSC tapes, which were physical, technical differences. A region 2 DVD rips to my computer just as easily as a region 1 DVD, and if I weren’t utterly chicken shit I’d tell you if I actually did it.

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