--- Forwarded Message from Judy Shoaf <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:56:54 -0400
>From: Judy Shoaf <[log in to unmask]>
>User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (Windows/20071031)
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum   
<[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Legality of non-Region-1 DVDs

I have been spending some time on the Videolib list and the following 
article spiked a discussion there:

http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1212223071
195010.xml&coll=2

The consensus of Videolib (librarians and reps of various DVD rights 
holders) was that, no matter what the article says, the DVDs in question 
were undoubtedly Chinese bootleg versions of the materials, and 
therefore illegal.

The article, however, is claiming that the DVDs owned by the public 
library are copies fully licensed for manufacture and distribution in 
Region 3.

Their illegality would depend on a proposition that the DVD regions are 
not a matter of encoding but of geography: one cannot sell (or buy) a 
DVD outside its region.

The only thing I can think of would be that the Chinese distributor has 
a contract specifically prohibiting sale to the US. But the article 
implies that this is an appeal to or test of copyright law itself.

NB the region coding is evidently not being circumvented, since the 
players involved supposedly match the region code. In what I have read 
of cases re. this law, it should be perfectly legal for an individual to 
play non-region-1 DVDs so long as no region-free player is involved 
(e.g. it can be legally played on a computer drive or a region-specific 
player).

Comments?

Judy Shoaf


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