IT'S A GOOOOD MOTHERFUCKING BEER!!!
Mod chipping of Sony Playstations has been ruled legal by the High Court.
Earlier this year I decided I wanted to buy the first and second series of Chappelle's Show on DVD. First, I thought they might be available through SBS, who run their store through Dymocks. No luck. Then I tried Sanity's online store (don't ever order from them- it costs just as much as retail and takes weeks to arrive!). No luck there either. Then I tried Amazon, which has the series on DVD, but only for region 1. Australia is region 4. Region 1 DVD's will not play on a region 4 player. I searched everywhere for a site that sold region 4 coded DVD's of Chappelle's Show and couldn't find a single one. I don't think they even make them on region 4.
The only way we could legally own and watch Chappelle's Show on DVD is to get our X-box chipped or buy a region-free DVD player- and why should we be forced to buy a DVD player when we already have one? What Sony and Microsoft and other manufacturers have done by creating regions for their product to force consumers in each region to pay the price they set instead of being able to shop around is anti-competetive. I believe the Australian Consumers Association has made this argument in court. Funnily enough I'm not sure that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has. It seems that when companies collude in an anti-competetive practice that disadvantages the consumer but not each other, governments really couldn't care less. Which is why I'm surprised but very happy with the High Court's decision today. I hope that console and DVD player manufacturers are forced to abandon their practice of region encoding altogether, although I still plan on getting our X-box chipped in the mean time so we can get Chappelle's Show!
3 comments:
Ah Samuel L Jackson Beer
"Buy my BEER, I'M SAMUEL L JACKSON GODDAMIT"
I concur on the regions thing. It's a complete joke. All it does is make people buy later model DVD players that are multi regional.
I do feel for companies RE getting pirated. But they retail their stuff for so very, very much that people are motivated to go buy pirate stuff. If they dropped it - they would not. Simple economics - and beneficial to the consumer too.
I read a comment by the EMI Chairman that cheaper prices for music & DVDs wouldn't encourage people to buy instead of pirate, which is the biggest load of rubbish I've ever heard.
When Gam and I were in Ghana we watched loads of really crappy quality pirated VCDs- I don't even think legal DVDs are sold there, because if the companies sold them for, say $10, that's still one third of many peoples' monthly wage. Obviously we can afford a bit more, but we simply don't buy many DVDs because we're poor students. If they were cheaper we would buy more. Like you said, simple economics, unless you're the chairman of EMI!
Amen to that.
I try to avoid any pirated stuff nowdays. Everything on my PC is basically legit now. And that was certainly not the case when I was a student :)
How much does a DVD cost to press? Like $2. And it retails for $30-35 depending?
I'm doing the math and pirating - it be looking good it be.
Yar.
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