copyright protection

[ozfestus]

As I understand Blu-Ray publishing, modified region coding is to be retained. Further, the copyright protection is to include a feature that will update the Blu-Ray bios should a Blu-Ray disk fail a copyright test and render the player un-useable.
As far as I am concerned both of these scheems are unacceptable. I live in Australia but am able to handle German as well as Malay. With the region zoning I will be denied access to the German movie market as well as the Malay movie market. Furter, I will not be able to order movies from the US or other english speaking countries.
As for the feature that allows a content provider to disable my player - I do not know what the laws are in other countries but here you get into trouble if I damage property that does not belong to you. Therefore the question arises: will content providers pay for repairs to my hardware should they implement the bios update feature? After all it is possible for a borrowed disk I do not know the history of to fail the copyright test.

[BTBuck1]

what u might have to do is unlock the player, and calling customer care might be the only way you can do it. They will probably have a 3 strikes your out policy with this. Warning, 2nd warning...probably even another...then your assed out.

I'd imagine a series of button presses would unlock the player.

[ProvenFlipper]

Where is this information about the player being locked documented? I've never heards of this and I would be very interested to look into legality issues regading this.

[no_wei]

as a representative of the mpaa, i would just like to ask you one question.

what are you doing borrowing discs in the first place, huh? you didn't pay for the license. you have no right to watch it. you're stealing our property, so we're going to damage yours.

have a nice day.

i'm joking, in case you didn't get that...

seriously, though, one thing i'm wondering about is the mechanics of the players themselves.

do all players have to behave in this fashion? i know a lot of dvd players, especially some of the late model el cheapo wal-mart dvd players, ignore things like region coding and copyright protection. our super cheap dvd player not only ignored the region coding on one of my discs but played it even though it was PAL (and I live in Canada).

I would think that the disc is only going to be able to do what the player decides it can or cannot do. obviously a lot of manufactures are of the mindset that it's in their best interest to make their players function with their copyright protection as efficiently as possible, but won't there be a slough of other manufacturers who think the opposite? not only because they have no interest in whether or not certain "rights management" systems work, but also, i would think that it's got to be cheaper to produce a functioning player the utilizes as few other those features as possible.

also, how does this address the issue of individually authored discs? if recorders are out there then companies are going to be marketing them as able to hold pictures and movies and other things.

personally, i don't know how they intend to make this system work, and i'm pretty convinced that it can't.

/no

[Blue]

Technically they can disable a player without any real trouble - just look at viruses with computers. However legally and politically is another matter. There are many early posts I think about May last year - it should be noted that they were based on rumour and well founded speculation. I suspect if it were not for looming format war all the DRM possible would have been implemented. We know that for Blu Ray there are 3 regions over simplified below
1. American continent + part of Asia
2. Europe
3. The rest
It's calimed it's not being "implemented" whatever that means (it's there on the player but not on the discs? or nowhere). Even if not on the Samsung what about the next wave of players? Good questions but no definative answers. I would suggest that if they have no intention of using it - why put in the standards? Region encoding has become a joke with DVD, lets hope we are laughing before blu ray gets off the ground.

[no_wei]

so, wait, blu-ray has fewer regions than dvd? or are those three main regions broken up into sub-regions or something?

/no

[Psiweaver]

no just three main regions though orginally it was supposed to be region free. I think regions are retarted because I like to watch anime and other foriegn films and it cuts down my ability to do that.

[no_wei]

Originally Posted by Psiweaver

no just three main regions though orginally it was supposed to be region free. I think regions are retarted because I like to watch anime and other foriegn films and it cuts down my ability to do that.

yeah, i'm in the same boat a lot of the time, but i do know there are a few compelling arguments in favour of region coding. namely that it has the potential to give distributors the power, or appearance of power, to prevent people from viewing content that would be considered illegal in parts of the world.

that being said, i'd like to see more restraint exercised in the use of region coding. i think unless there's a really good reason to lock content from a specific region (i.e. the provided could be prosecuted) then there's really no reason to do it.

here's another thing to ponder... why are there so often upwards of half a dozen subtitle options on dvds if they can't be viewed in the regions where those languages are predominantly spoken?

/no

[Psiweaver]

The whole subtitle thing i have no clue about. I do think that it would make more sense to have international distrubitors without region encoding.

[no_wei]

Originally Posted by Psiweaver

The whole subtitle thing i have no clue about. I do think that it would make more sense to have international distrubitors without region encoding.

That works to a point. except there's way more cost involved, because you'd have to press several different versions of the same disc. also, there's nothing stopping me from ordering discs from europe, or anywhere else for that matter, the only problem is playing them.

now, most of us who live in north america don't usually have to worry about ordering content from somewhere else that would actually be illegal to own and view (i would imagine that child pornography is more-or-less legal in a place like thailand where child prostitution is also more-or-less legal, but that's the exception rather than the rule). so for the most part, i can't see a really good reason why a distributor would have cause to prevent a disc from playing in our region.

other parts of the world, however, might have stricter laws. take pornography in japan, for instance. i believe they've got stricter laws on what can and can't be shown (although i don't know how enforced these laws are). so it would make sense for an american distributor of pornography to prevent certain discs from being playable in japan (although, correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't north america and japan part of the same region? with both dvd and blu-ray? so, yeah, this is just an example).

So, that ultimately saves on distribution costs while making sure no one gets sued, and I'm fine with that.

I don't however, understand why I can't buy a legit version of a film like Night Watch (okay, so now there is a North American release of Night Watch) to view on my dvd player without having to worry about region coding. All it did was give me more of a rationalization to download the film and author my own dvd. good movie, btw.

/no

[Psiweaver]

Yeah thats why the whole thing is soo wierd.