http://www.afterellen.com/blog/roc/bad-gir...d-for-my-health

Hi abzug:

Went over to the site and am not sure if I understand correctly. Is ordering DVD's from Amazon and then playing them on a region free DVD player considered illegal?

I'm not abzug, but I'll answer. No, that's not illegal. The point of region coding in DVDs is to prevent piracy.

But using bit torrent sites technically is illegal. And putting episodes up on You Tube is also illegal because it's a copyright infringement. But then again, so is copying CDs and a lot of other things we all do on occasion.

I am definitely no lawyer, but it seems to me the entire question re what parts of the bittorent protocol are 'legal' or 'illegal' is still wide open (& currently being disputed in a dozen countries).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorent

It's the same situation as Napster, with music corporations wringing their hands & decrying the end of all things profitable. My heart bleeds. They should all be forced to work for a living. The technicalities are different (again, to my very limited understanding), but it's the same kind of response to the same kind of perceived threat. The real issue (imo) is that huge companies have to ensure they make profits, and are always deathly scared of new technology. New technology often returns profits to them in unlikely or unanticipated ways, but that's not something corporate executives can wrap their heads around.


ps:
My impression is that the whole issue of the sort of things we understand to be under 'copyright' will likely change radically in the next decade or two. There's no way for multinationals to control data the end user wants to acquire. The only thing they can control is the software allowing access to it. So that will be the thing they concentrate on. Thus the push for fiber optic lines, so high-quality TV can be delivered over the net, at a cost of god-knows-what. Those are the kinds of things they *can* control & make gobs of money off of.

I'm still trying to figure out what roc's problem is. As someone suggested on AE, most DVD drives on PCs are region free. The other day I bought a region 1 DVD by mistake, but didn't realise it until I got home. I popped it into my PC and WMP (version 10, I believe) was kind enough to let me know that (1) you are trying to view a region 1 DVD on region 2 settings; and (2) would you like WMP to change your settings to region 1? One click on the OK button and everything was sorted! And if you don't have WMP10, you can download it from the Microsoft website - 100% legal! :dazzler I also had no problem switching between regions on my actual DVD player - it was just a question of figuring out where to go in the menu and what to change. Not that I actually made the effort to buy a region free DVD player, they just seem to be that way these days. Or is this just the case for our folks in the 3rd world?

I think the region-free dvd stuff is relatively kosher, but the file sharing not so much, at least from AfterEllen's perspective, given that they are owned by Logo, who is owned by Viacom, which is a major media company (they own Showtime etc) and therefore are highly motivated to protect their content from being distributed in ways for which they do not receive compensation in the form of royalties.

However, the prevalance of region-free dvd players reduces the profit potential for a US distributor deciding whether to release BG here in the US, so in a way we Americans are doing our fellow countrymen a disservice by buying our dvds overseas. Of course, that's not going to stop me....

Can't you only do that for a certain number of times before it changes your region permenantly? I did that once accidentally and my computer told me that I had 5 (?) times to change my region before it settled on one forever. My computer is a couple of years old though.

However, I have AnyDVD downloaded and it makes my computer think that everything is region 1, even when it's not.

But, yeah, I'm not sure what the point of roc's blog was since she's literally saying she doesn't want to do anything about it but wait.

Her blog is a complaint about the lack of distribution of gay stuff, be it dvd distributors not picking up the show, or cable companies not picking up a gay channel. Unfortunately her writing wasn't very clear in its effort to communicate the political issue, so it wound up just sounding a bit like she was an unresourceful whiner. The complaint is a legitimate one, though, that's for sure, and one that people should be talking about, so I'm actually glad she posted it, and glad it led to the discussion it did.

I'm not sure this ought to be taken too far. I freely admit that I am somewhat backward technically in computer and internet matters. So long as I'm on a familiar path, I' m happy. Once off it then I tend to panic, much to the amusement of a more technically confident and competent friend of mine- to add a twist to that, she's blind. I have real sympathy for this piece much as I have sympathy for myself at times. Grin.

"See, I am a victim of the American consumer mindset: I think that if something exists in the world, I can have it. Not a problem. I know that there are those who will read this and say, “roc, this is all you have to do.” Well, let me thank you in advance for caring enough to make suggestions. Really. But if “this is all you have to do” is followed by anything more than “put the DVD into your current region 1 disc–playing DVD player and hit play,” then it is too much for me to follow."

Nope, never had any warning bells sounding in my ears. Funny thing is that I watched the region 1 disc and a couple of nights later, also watched BG on my computer. My BG discs are region 2, but I wasn't asked if I want to switch back to region 2 - the disc just played without any problems.

Nor, I think, will it stop us from also buying an american region dvd set of series 2 & 3 if they'd just get it done.

I'd really love to see a tenth anniversary set of the first 3 series with new commentary. <G>

I think region specific DVD Players are more common in the USA, no?
Cause when I bought my Sony DVD Player(here in Aus) in 2005 I didn't know anything about them. Athough I already had BG's region 4, I found out by accident my player could play foreign made DVD's. Also my DVD player on my tower can play foreign DVD's - no problem.

Heh. You mean ANY commentary!? Oh yeah. And a sh*t-ton of deleted material. All of it H&N. It's... the fantasy BG special-edition DVD set!

A girl can dream. :)

I am with this blogger/ whiner/ techno-phobe person 100 percent! I do not get Logo either...for some reason I get Logo "On Demand", which is a paradox because when I demand to watch Bad Girls, it only gives me a new episode about once every three weeks! A few years ago my now ex-partner bought me a Daewoo region free dvd player so we could watch Tipping the Velvet. So, when I got addicted to Bad Girls with my current parter, we dug the "Region Free" player out of the basement with glee, and ordered the first three series of BG from amazon-uk. When the dvds arrived our glee was no longer --- although it would still play TTV and a few other region 2s I had purchased, it would not play BG. We tried hacking with the dvd player's remotes, and failed. Luckilly she has a laptop that did play the dvds, but when I tried to play a region 1 movie, it asked me to change regions and gave me the "5 times " warning. I freaked and decided that the laptop was ONLY for Bad Girls viewing.

And, I heart youtube.

I am not familiar with that player--you might want to post a summary of the technical problems you outlined here in the technical/Help thread on the board, maybe someone can help you. If it's under warranty however I'd definitely call the place you bought it from &/or return it if won't play those BG DVDs--because something's wrong with that, it should be totally easy. --ekny