09-18-2005, 06:12 PM
LawtoniaSep 18 2005, 03:27 PM You are in region 2 which happens to have several hundred million more english speakers than in region 4 where I am from. Australia may look big on a map but there are only 19million people here. Your choice in media content is a lot larger than we get in region 4. Because of region encoding we miss out on a lot of US independent films as well as a large chunk of wonderful european cinema. Region encoding is anti-competitive behaviour and should be discouraged. [/quote]
Region encoding isn't anti-competetive at all. In fact, I'd suggest the opposite. A company that sells region-free DVDs will have less costs and more potential customers. No problems with competition there. And the company that starts to make region-free players will sell a lot of them by the sound of it.
I know there aren't a lot of people in Australia. And that means that it will always have problems getting certain products, because the market is small and you'll need more transportation. It'll never be fair. If you live in Broken Hill, NSW, that means that goods are likely to be more expensive or unavailable because they have to be brought all the way there for few people, while in Sydney you can get pretty much anything you want. Though probably expensive too, but that's Sydney. Melbourne'll be cheaper if things haven't changed too much since I was there.
That's simply how it works. Whether there's a regional system or not; media companies will try to think of new ways to protect against copying, at the expense of the customer. All you can do is not buy their products. They'll go broke eventually. The only solution for them is to lower prices, which means they'll have to cut back on merchandising and outrageous salaries. That's the free market. These days, what people want to pay for entertainment products is much less than 10 or 20 years ago, because there is more choice. Pirating isn't as much an issue as entertainment companies suggest, it's mainly the economy going bad, and more and more choice with CD, DVD, games, internet, and everything else. You can only spend your (curreny unit here) once.
Region encoding isn't anti-competetive at all. In fact, I'd suggest the opposite. A company that sells region-free DVDs will have less costs and more potential customers. No problems with competition there. And the company that starts to make region-free players will sell a lot of them by the sound of it.
I know there aren't a lot of people in Australia. And that means that it will always have problems getting certain products, because the market is small and you'll need more transportation. It'll never be fair. If you live in Broken Hill, NSW, that means that goods are likely to be more expensive or unavailable because they have to be brought all the way there for few people, while in Sydney you can get pretty much anything you want. Though probably expensive too, but that's Sydney. Melbourne'll be cheaper if things haven't changed too much since I was there.
That's simply how it works. Whether there's a regional system or not; media companies will try to think of new ways to protect against copying, at the expense of the customer. All you can do is not buy their products. They'll go broke eventually. The only solution for them is to lower prices, which means they'll have to cut back on merchandising and outrageous salaries. That's the free market. These days, what people want to pay for entertainment products is much less than 10 or 20 years ago, because there is more choice. Pirating isn't as much an issue as entertainment companies suggest, it's mainly the economy going bad, and more and more choice with CD, DVD, games, internet, and everything else. You can only spend your (curreny unit here) once.