| Region Coding |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT REGIONAL LOCKOUT | |
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| digital rights management | |
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Regional lockout is the programming practice, code, chip, or physical barrier used to prevent the playing of media designed for a device from the country where it is marketed on the version of the same device marketed in another country. EXAMPLES Video games
The main regions are: The Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS do not have regional lockout; because of this, Import games can be played on those systems. In other words, a Japanese game would work on an American unit, although the game would likely not be in the user's native language and might be different from the product as released in other countries. Many " Hardcore Gamers " import games, usually from Japan or North America, if the game is released much earlier in that country than in their own, or for other reasons (see Import Gamers ). The PSP does have partial regional lockout, and uses the same regions as DVD. As of February 2006, the lockout is only used for UMD movies and not for games, although Sony has hinted it is up to the developers if they want to include region protection in their games. As of February 2007, copies of Battlezone for the PSP that are released in certain countries are found to be region protected, however it is unknown if there are other region-protected PSP games in the market. The Sixth Generation Of Video Game Consoles have regional lockout, so games imported from other countries cannot be played on foreign versions of those Consoles without some form of alteration to bypass the lockout. DVDs
It means that RPC-1 drives can play DVDs from any region (0-8) while RPC-2 drives play only from a particular region (although the region code can be changed 5 times after which the code is locked.). TECHNICAL DESIGN Regional lockout usually requires hardware manufactured by someone who can be trusted to support the methods chosen. For example, manufacturers need a license to produce DVD players, and game consoles are generally produced by only one company per console. The hardware is typically instructed to play only media designated for a particular region, and that region is then encoded onto the media. For instance, a Japanese GameCube game disc is encoded with a marking NTSC-J (NTSC Japan), and GameCube consoles from Japan are programmed to only play games with that marking, not PAL or NTSC-M (NTSC US/Canada) game discs. LEGAL DESIGN In addition to technical measures, regional lockout schemes are generally supported by legal measures. For example, the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has a clause that covers "circumventing a scheme used to restrict access to copyrighted material" that may be used to prosecute people who ignore, circumvent, or crack a regional lockout scheme. Often such regional restrictions are in conflict with national law, for instance in regions such as Hong Kong, where Parallel Import is expressly allowed and supported by government bodies. Also, the High Court Of Australia has recently concluded that modification of devices to circumvent region lockout is allowed under Australian law {Link without Title} . It also violates the international copyright treaty Article 4[http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html#P56_5626 , which equates electronic media with that of other literary works such as books, with the copy owner having the right to buy, read, and sell the material anywhere in the world, as well as Article 10 [http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html#P83_10885], which prohibits the introduction of national legislation that limits copy owners normal use. ADVANTAGES FOR PRODUCERS
CRITICISMS
EFFECT ON SOCIETY Because regional lockout is commonly used to enforce Price Discrimination (or "price differentiation"), ACCC defends the rights of PlayStation owners the disparity in the price of an item between different locations encourages consumers to import goods privately. For both video games and movies, there is a so-called import scene or import community. In many cases, fans and collectors buy Asian or Japanese movies or games from online stores and eBay sellers prior to their release at home. Often these titles are not even scheduled for release overseas (e.g., some Anime ), or fans want to see and play the titles in their original unaltered form (e.g., uncut or in Japanese). The largest import communities are the Asian Martial Arts community, Video Games community, and the anime community. Because of the number of anime tie-ins produced for video game systems, the latter two communities have a great deal of overlap. For example, '' Naruto '' and '' One Piece '' are big hits on DVD, in comics, and on game systems. Members of import communities usually need a way to circumvent regional locks. In many countries, region free DVD players are available, and there are ways to make game consoles region free via Modchips . In certain regions such as Hong Kong and Australia, these technical lockout mechanisms are in conflict with local legislation. The law allows the free sale of imported goods, but technical barriers are put in place by game system and DVD player manufacturers. In Hong Kong, DVD players are usually modified by the distributor and sold region free without extra cost, while buyers of PlayStation or PlayStation 2 consoles have to pay extra for a pre-installed modchip in their game console. ECONOMIC EFFECTS Because of Sony's region lockout for Universal Media Disc (UMD) movies, the Japanese (and die-hard fans with import consoles) have to buy their UMD version of "The Punisher" for about $40 (¥3,990), while the very same film is available in the US for $13.99. It is legal in Japan to import movies and even prohibited by law to restrict imports, but due to region lockout, it is impossible to play a disc from another region without additional technological measures. From the consumer's point of view, the result is products that could be available more cheaply elsewhere, and being questionable restrictions on what they can and cannot buy (and watch). From the region lockers' point of view, the result is a higher income, less intra-brand competition (because there is no rivalry or free trade between competing territories), and greater control of price in affected markets. It should be noted that these practices directly contradict the principles of Free Market Capitalism , especially that espoused by Adam Smith . Many consider that it strays into the realm of Price Fixing . DEFEATING REGIONAL LOCKOUT Video games and consoles
DVD
In some cases, it may not be necessary to actively defeat regional lockout. Some DVD players are shipped by the manufacturer without the ability to enforce regional lockout, known as region-free players. For example, every DVD-playing unit sold in Australia, excluding PC devices, is shipped modified with a region-free chip installed. This was a result of a landmark ACCC case in which the High Court of Australia ruled that region lockouts breached fair trade and market competition practices . SEE ALSO
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