[plug] Open source DVD playback

[Christian]

I don't think I could express things any better than Greg but I'm still
going to make a comment.

On Wed, Oct 10, 2001 at 07:14:23PM +0800, alan howard wrote:
  
> well in that case all those cheap chineese dvd players in the shops are not 
> really multizone  like claimed on there packaging?

I don't know what the legal status of these are but I suspect they
probably are violating the intellectual property
wrongs^H^H^H^H^H^Hrights of the companies involved.  Then again, the
ACCC seems to think that the DVD zoning scheme breaks Australian law due
to its anti-competitive effects so this is probably one reason why the
matter hasn't gone to court in Australia. <Insert usual non-lawyer
comment disclaimer here>

 
> well they did realese video tapes (vhs) later than the cinemas in the past 
> and still do  , and know one seams to be complaining. 

Ummm.... so?  They still do but you can always order them from overseas
as soon as they are released there.  On the other hand, the DVD region
coding is designed to deliberately deny you this option.  If the R1 disc
is better than the R4 (or there is no R4, as is the case for several of
my favourite movies that I want to own on DVD) then isn't it reasonable
to want to purchase (usually at a premium price due to shipping costs
and lousy exchange rates) the disc elsewhere?  Of course, the fact that
the vast majority of the DVDs being released are old movies and aren't
being shown on a "first release" basis anywhere in the world at all and
are STILL region coded seems to be simply a way of trying to restrict
the rights of consumers.

> consumers always get hurt , there always have been restrictions due to 
> copyright and patents. that is the way of the western world. and why not. 
> people that develop technology should be rewarded for there expense, but some 
> do tend to become extremly greedy , usually at the expense of minority 
> groups, such as , in this case linux users. its probably no coincidence that 
> one of the devolopers of dvd also owns movie studios and not to mention 
> recording studios, and makes game consoles , etc.

As Greg points out, you seem to think that because consumers regularly
get hurt that this perfectly acceptable but surely you can't be serious?
In any case, if the situation changes so that the rights of consumers
get eroded even further, don't you think that's worth protesting about?
The current plans are to eliminate general purpose computers that don't
use operating systems that have been officially approved to include
restrictions designed to prevent consumers reasonable use of the
copyrighted materials they may purchase.  Are you seriously telling me
you don't see this as a problem?

In all this mess people seem to forget that the basic premise of
intellectual property laws are not to protect the rights of authors (and
certainly not to protect the rights of publishers who make money off the
hard work of the authors) but to benefit society as a whole.  The
purpose is not to provide a whole set of new jobs for authors and
publishers but to ensure that authors have an incentive to produce new
works that will be of value to society as a whole.  After all, if there
were no such laws then authors wouldn't be able to survive financially
and would stop producing works of value to society and we all would
suffer as a result.  However, publishers manipulate and extend these
laws so as to make money from the hard work of authors and to limit the
rights of society as a whole.  When a law stops benefitting society in
general (particularly one for which this was the original purpose!) and
instead begins to advantage a very small group of people to the
detriment of the rest, then surely that law needs to be either revised,
scrapped entirely or simply ignored.

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