Amazing news for Satyajit Ray films

[ravenus]

I'll also keep from derailing the thread with region coding discussions but it all boils down to this:

1. Will a company be allowed worldwide home video rights for a particular film?
2. If so, how much will it cost them?
3. How will a global release affect their operations and profit margins?

Generally most of the region free releases come from major studios which are distributing their own movies. Independent labels like Criterion, Eureka etc. have to purchase a license to make a home video release of any film in their catalog and the law requires that they adhere to the instructions issued by the licensor. Sometimes they may be allowed to have a region free release but if the rights for different regions are sold to different studios then they cannot have a region free release that competes with the product of the other licensees. Unless Criterion can afford to outbid other studios for global release rights to make their entire catalog region free, it makes more sense to have their catalog consistently locked to one region.

But Aren't criterion releases are those movies who are never remastered and transferred on Bluray before?

No, no, no, no and no.