Why aren't all Blu-rays/dvds region free?

[bone crusher]

Wouldn't it be nice if all our BD players could play any disc from anywhere in the world? What is the reasoning for making particular movies region locked?

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by bone crusher

Wouldn't it be nice if all our BD players could play any disc from anywhere in the world? What is the reasoning for making particular movies region locked?

It has to do with different studios owning the distribution rights to a specific country. For instance, (totally hypothetical and simplified) let's say Fox and WB joined to produce a movie. And let's say Fox owned the distribution rights in the US, while WB owned the rights to Europe. The disc would be region locked when WB released the movie in Europe to control sales in Europe, and vice versa. It actually gets more complicated with the more studios, especially independent studios, are involved.

[Jim Purcell]

Money.

[Blu-ray Fanatic]

Bottom line: It's all about money and authority.

[Gremal]

It's more about ROI and honoring business deals and intellectual property.

[Clark Kent]

Even if a studio owns a movie's rights on a global basis, they want to be able to maximize revenue in each territory depending on market factors and other considerations. What often happens is a movie will be released months, or even years later, in different countries.

[Todd_Gaines]

So I can't watch La Haine (the UK release) , Elite Squad, and Sin Nombre on my PS3.

[RBBrittain]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

It has to do with different studios owning the distribution rights to a specific country. For instance, (totally hypothetical and simplified) let's say Fox and WB joined to produce a movie. And let's say Fox owned the distribution rights in the US, while WB owned the rights to Europe. The disc would be region locked when WB released the movie in Europe to control sales in Europe, and vice versa. It actually gets more complicated with the more studios, especially independent studios, are involved.

Fox would likely region-lock the US edition, but WB probably would make most of the European editions region-free. It has a lot to do with the studio; WB, Universal, Sony & MoC won't region-lock unless the underlying rights owner demands it, but Fox region-locks most of its U.S. titles (though a growing number are region-free), as do most indies.

For example, Dances With Wolves was generally region-free wherever WB owned the rights (i.e., UK) as well as in France (Fox Pathé), but region-locked by most other distributors, i.e., U.S. (MGM/Fox) and Germany (Kinowelt). And that was the reverse of the usual situation Clark is referring to--that BD was out in Europe *before* the States.

OTOH, while Fox allowed MoC to make Sunrise region-free as they had no other plans to release it (the underlying transfer was for a DVD only available in the expensive Murnau, Borzage & Fox boxset), the F.W. Murnau Foundation forced MoC to region-lock Metropolis to avoid conflicts with its U.S. licensee, Kino. Likewise, Kino was forced to region-lock Metropolis here; its U.S. release was delayed by a week because Kino's first production run was mistakenly region-free.

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by Blu-ray Fanatic

Bottom line: It's all about money and authority.

Right and lets be honest - this region crap is where HD DVD blew away blu-ray. I hate that nonsense. The problem is that some studios are cool about it but most are not. FOX, Disney, and Sony - all the heaviest blu-ray supporters back during the HD disc wars refused to deal with HD DVD for this reason. Warner and Paramount didnt seem to care too much though.

Oh well. Its BS and is still a black-eye on the format, IMO.

[RBBrittain]

Originally Posted by Todd_Gaines

So I can't watch La Haine (the UK release) , Elite Squad, and Sin Nombre on my PS3.

Correct, unless you have a Region B PS3, preferably with a TV that can handle PAL/50Hz video. (PS3 hackers may crack region coding momentarily, but Sony regularly closes those with mandatory system updates.) The most legal means of bypassing that is a SA player with multi-region capabilities, either thru remote hacks (like my Sherwood--cross your fingers the hack won't be killed by a future firmware update, but so far I haven't needed one though reportedly the kill is out there) or mod chips. It can also be bypassed by certain HTPC software that can't be discussed on this board.

[unclemat]

Simple answer: Dune player. Region free via a software patch.

Plus combined with AnyDVD you can stream blu-ray rips from a computer/network storage.

[The Theory]

As others have said... money.

But a bit more specifically, it is a tool that the owners of a film use to control distribution.

If US company A makes a movie and licenses it to European company B, then the reasonable expectation is that a US consumer will buy from company A and a European consumer will buy from company B and everyone is happy. If a US consumer imports from company B the effect is two-fold. 1. Company A misses out on a sale and 2. Company B makes a sale that isn't a part of their region. On a small scale this isn't a huge problem, especially for major Hollywood titles. But on a larger scale it can have major implications, especially for niche markets.

Take Japanese animation (anime) as an example of a niche market which can be hurt by importing. Japanese companies produce and own the anime. Their main focus is their market--but because there is demand in the US for anime they Japanese companies will license anime movies and shows to US companies. However, anime in the US is MUCH cheaper than anime in Japan, so the big fear for Japanese companies is that Japanese consumers will import product from the US rather than buy their own releases. Just an example of the figures--a DVD or blu-ray in Japan with 2 or 3 episodes will retail for around the US equivalent of $70. In the US you can (usually) get the entire 12 or 24 episode series for $60 or less. A phenomenal price difference. The Japanese companies wouldn't want to lose their consumer base to importing, so they were a fan of the DVD region difference between Japan and the US--that kept the importing to a minimum.

(They, of course, would not be concerned with US consumers importing anime from Japan... US consumers would be unlikely to import anything already available in the US due to the steep pricing difference. Everyone, on the other hand, is concerned with illegal bootleg "imports" which are way cheaper than either Japanese or US releases, but that is a different topic all together.)

I haven't kept up with anime enough in the past year or so to see how they're handling blu-ray releases, since Japan and the US share the same region in this format. For some releases I've seen Japan has made the US company agree to only include an English language track. In other cases they're making the US company wait to release the product until its been out in Japan long enough to capture the hardcore sales.

In any case (getting back to non-anime importing), it'll be interesting to see how the upcoming US releases of anticipated titles like Pulp Fiction do since there has been good region-free releases available for a couple of years now that people have been actively importing. It is probably a popular enough title that the US company will still do well with it, but the number of imports in America right now is fairly significant.

[HD Goofnut]

One of the many reasons I preferred HD DVD to BD. All HD DVDs were region free and that sure was a nice perk.

[Blu-ray Fanatic]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

One of the many reasons I preferred HD DVD to BD. All HD DVDs were region free and that sure was a nice perk.

Fanboy

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Blu-ray Fanatic

Fanboy

I have never been a fanboy of anything other than 1080p on a tangible format. Why else would I have nearly six hundred BDs? Name calling is not welcome around here either.

[Dubstar]

four words: Criterion, British Film Institute ...

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by s2mikey

Right and lets be honest - this region crap is where HD DVD blew away blu-ray. I hate that nonsense. The problem is that some studios are cool about it but most are not. FOX, Disney, and Sony - all the heaviest blu-ray supporters back during the HD disc wars refused to deal with HD DVD for this reason. Warner and Paramount didnt seem to care too much though.

Oh well. Its BS and is still a black-eye on the format, IMO.

It's not B.S. It's about protecting the rights of a distributor. Let's say you bought the rights to sell Citizen Kane in Europe. You paid a lot of money for those rights. You'd like a return on your investment, otherwise you might not be able to stay in business and a lot of people would lose their jobs.

But Turner, who owns the rights in the U.S., starts selling against you in Europe. You say, "wait a minute - they didn't pay anything to sell in Europe. I paid a big license fee and now I'm getting totally screwed."

As a consumer, you probably don't give a damn - you just want to buy the movie at the lowest possible price and you don't want to be stopped from buying movies that might not even be available in your country.

Fights like this have been going on forever. Courts have ruled, for example, against the import of parallel editions. So bookstores here can't legitimately sell the British editions of Harry Potter. And generally they didn't, but if someone did import British editions, there was no technology to stop someone from reading the Brit edition. (I used to travel to Europe and I would always seek to buy books that weren't yet published in the U.S.). Same thing in the record industry, which is more like the BR industry. Again, no technology could stop me listening to the British releases of early Beatles records as opposed to the butchered Capital releases.

But since the advent of the DVD, technology has been available to stop people from viewing video not intended for their market. But online viewing is making this moot anyway. So at this point, the region encoding IMO isn't worth the bang for the buck and it should be eliminated in all but the most extreme circumstances. But I understand why the studios still want it in at least some cases. Frankly, I'm amazed that not all releases are region coded.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

One of the many reasons I preferred HD DVD to BD. All HD DVDs were region free and that sure was a nice perk.

What wasn't is that because HDDVD was region-free by default, many, many films simply would have never appeared on the format - which is one of many reasons why HDDVD was not good for the industry, and which is one of many reasons why it was not good for the consumer. Region-Free discs without content are just that...discs, and no one buys and collects discs; people buy the high-quality content that is on the discs.

At the end of the day, when one carefully analyzes the big picture (and specifically how the market has been functioning for years), Blu-ray was the more consumer-friendly option (see above) and the format with the better tech portfolio.

The better format won. The consumers won as well.

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

It's not B.S. It's about protecting the rights of a distributor.

Bingo!

Pro-B

[One4Deuce]

Originally Posted by Jim Purcell

Money.

The answer to all of life's questions.

[xxstrataxx]

money money money monnnnney!