According to Blockbuster's president and COO, Nigel Travis, the "extra time and windows created by regional coding is an opportunity that pirates exploit". Region codes were included to DVD-Video discs to allow movie distributors to fix the prices in different market areas and also to allow the typical delayed movie distribution chain to exist. With most of the Hollywood releases, the movie theater premiere is appx. 30 to 90 days in the U.S. before the same movie hits the big screens in Japan, Europe, Australia, etc. And when the movie is showing in movie theaters in Europe, there's already a DVD version released in the States of the same movie. And when the same movie is released on DVD in Europe/Australia/Japan/etc, the movie rights are already sold for pay-per-view TV channels in the U.S. and on it goes.
Now, this finely tuned money-maximizing effort has been spoiled by various countries, including most of the European Union countries, that consider it to be perfectly legal to sell hacked DVD players that allow playing movies from all the regions -- and this practice is legal and therefor virtually every single DVD player sold in, for example, the United Kingdom -- even when bought with manufacturer's warranty from a high street store -- is already region free.
Travis told about this in his keynote speech in European Video conference in France and cited highly popular Finding Nemo as a perfect example: the movie was released on DVD in States in November, but wont be available on DVD in the UK until March 2004. "Pirates take advantage of this and can drive the proverbial cart and horses through these holes in the release schedule, and the loss of revenue hurts us all--studios, distribution and retailers," Travis said.
Source: Video Business Online (requires registration)
Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 11 Dec 2003 15:08
