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"Ultimate Hitchcock Collection" Public Domain release (1 Viewer)

cafink

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Sorry, but I'm with Jon on this one.

I am morally opposed to bootleg DVDs because they are not authorized by the owner of the work in question, and said owner receives no compensation from their sale.

Imported DVDs are a different story entirely. If the U.K. copyright holder has gone through the proper channels to obtain the rights to release a film on DVD in the U.K., then I don't see any problem with purchasing that DVD from the U.K. As long as he has properly procured the rights to the product, why should I be concerned about where the seller is located geographically?
 

Jon Martin

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But in this case, there are no U.S. copyright holders doing anything with it. If someone buys the R2 copies of the Hitchcock set, other than the PD companies (and not counting the ones Criterion released), who is being hurt by it?

It is one thing if there is a US version, but I don't think that is being argued.
 

george kaplan

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Well I'm sure it's a fine legal point, but if product X is sold in country Y to someone in country Z, it's not clear to me which country that sale took place in. Certainly if I travel to England and buy a disc (which I'd never do due to Pal speedup), and then bring it back to the U.S., I've bought it in England legitimately. Now, is my mail-ordering it from England really any different?
 

SD_Brian

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If nobody is being hurt by it, why have region coding at all? Why not just release everything as Region 0?
 

SD_Brian

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From a consumer point of view there is not a difference. The seller, however, is violating the licensing by knowingly shipping it out of the region.
 

Michael Elliott

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Perhaps but in same cases a certain title might be in the public domain in England while being owned by someone in America. I can only mainly speak for certain horror titles but some companies, when they buy the rights to the film, can't include an English track or English subtitles because the company wants to sell those rights to someone in R1 land to release. There are countless German discs, which feature no subs for this very reason. The copyright holder would mach rather sell their title to two different companies in two different countries because it gets the product out there more.
 

cafink

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I don't believe there is such a thing as "someone who isn't region free." It isn't some intrinsic, unchangeable characteristic like gender or skin color--anyone who wants to can purchase a region free player just as easily as anyone else. They are not difficult to come by. I picked one up from the local Best Buy for only $40 just a couple of weeks ago.

But even if someone is stuck with a Region 1 player, I'd argue that he's hurt not by my (or anyone else's) purchase of imported DVDs, but by region encoding itself, without which he'd be able to purchase the R2 release just as easily as the R1 release that would have been.
 

Michael Elliott

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Carl, not everyone out there is as smart as us in knowing about region free. Walk into Best Buy one day and ask your casual shopper if they are region free and I doubt they'll know what you're talking about. Yes, I picked one up for $23 at Wal-Mart but I still had to know where to find the hack and go through all of that. The stores can't advertise that something is region free so someone will have to do their homework to find things.

I agree that there shouldn't be any region coding but I doubt this will change anytime soon. Even if it did, there are still those who refuse to buy PAL discs.
 

cafink

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Sure, but that doesn't mean that it's somehow "wrong" for me to purchase imported DVDs or that it "hurts" others in any real way.

There are a lot of consumers who are not very computer-savvy and are therefore unable purchase DVDs from online shops like Amazon. They will miss out on a lot of titles of the kind that aren't typically available at brick-and-mortar shops like Best Buy or Wal-Mart. If I and others had purchased more of these kinds of films from B&M shops, they'd similarly be more inclined to carry them, so my online purchases "hurt" consumers who aren't computer-savvy every bit as much as my imported purchases hurt consumers who aren't region-free, but I certainly don't feel any moral qualms about ordering DVDs on-line just because other consumers haven't done their homework.
 

Jace_A

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Because region coding has less to do with distributor's rights and more to do with the studios seeking to prevent people from importing DVDs from the US where those same films are screening in cinemas or have yet to be released in their territories. It is anti-competitive conduct that has been seen as such by several foreign governments. At least one, Australia, has legislated to allow consumers to by-pass regional coding restrictions in DVD players in order that those consumers may exercise their legal right to import DVDs from the US (or anywhere else) for their own personal use.
 

SD_Brian

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The fact remains that such importing/exporting is contrary to the wishes of the copyright holder(s). If they wanted their discs available and playable everywhere, they could very easily release them as Region 0. As far as I know, nobody is forcing companies to region code their discs.

I don't personally have a problem with such importation but I do recognize that it is frowned upon by those who control the rights, just like bootlegging is.
 

Jon Martin

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Is that really the case?

I know that I always replace whatever R2 discs I have if the film is released in R1. I only have one multiregion DVD player, while I have three regular DVD players. I don't want to be stuck on just one TV to watch an R2 DVD, I'd rather have it available on them all. And yes, there is the PAL speed up issue, as well multi region players not always being the best as far as quality of image goes.

If I get an R2 DVD, it is just to tide me over until it gets an R1 release.
 

Jonathon M

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Coming from Australia, every DVD player I have ever owned (firstly a Philips in '98, a couple of Pioneers, a Sony, and some others that I cannot recall the brand), have been region free, out of the sealed box.

God knows that if Australia was only able to play region 4 DVDs, we'd be stuck with Disturbia, Transformers, and Superbad, with little else.
 

Jace_A

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That's all well and good, but there's no legal recourse available to them if someone decides to import a DVD from another country for their own personal use. I'm not going to stop exercising my legal rights simply because I think Sony or Universal may not like it. This practice is not, and should not, be compared to bootlegging. They are entirely different and to imply that people who import legitimate discs are in some way comparable to bootleggers is rather insulting, to say the least.
 

Michael Elliott

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The studio/owner can't go after the person buying the disc but I think they can go after the store doing the selling. There's a very well known American site that sells R2 stuff and they have gotten threatening letters from the likes of Disney and Miramax.

I don't think anyone is giving people moral issues about importing but I think the studios wouldn't agree with you buying from R2 land. As I said in my first post, if I want to see a film I'm going to see it no matter how I have to do it. If Paramount never wants to release another classic titles then it's fine with me. I'll find another way to see it.


I guess it all depends on the person but I've got a SE of DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS so i wouldn't upgrade if Paramount ever released it. I spent $200+ on that L&H set so I wouldn't upgrade them either. I'm not one who typically upgrades so I'm not a good person to go with. Once I own a film I usually own it for good unless something too great comes out to pass up (like the re-released 2-disc titles from Warner).
 

cafink

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Whether they frown upon it or not is of no consequence to me. I'm sure that the owners of many films would frown upon me watching them upside-down, under water, or in a noisy room with all the lights on, but frankly, I couldn't care less about whether or not they approve of my viewing habits, as long as it's a DVD I've legitimately obtained through legal means.

They may wish whatever they like, but just because they suggest I watch it in a dark room with surround sound doesn't mean I have to do it (most of my DVD-watching is done in my bedroom through my television's speakers), any more than their setting a few bits on the disc means I can only watch my own DVDs while residing in a certain part of the world.
 

Tory

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I recently bought an LCD TV and it reads PAL signals. From what I gather, though they do not advertise it, most, if not all lcd will read PAL signal so if you have LCD, you may just need a DVD player that is Region Free, the conversion of signals would be unnecessary.


Now, I posted this elsewhere, I only have one item on both US and UK DVD the old full screen British TV series Carry On Laughing and the UK DVD is narrower and I can say that other OAR fullscreen DVDs I have watched on this TV are as narrow as this. I have not gone through everything just yet though. Members of this forum have indicated that overscan is viewable and the UK one has more of it but people at the Doctor Who Restoration forum indicated that the picture was being stretched a bit for the US release, I asked there because Doctor Who US DVDs are most likely affected by whatever happens.
 

cafink

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But George did not say he was unable to convert the PAL signal to NTSC. He said that he was unwilling to put up with the video and audio being sped up by 4%.
 

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