From: "Douglas Eckhart" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 17:29:56 +0100 Organization: BT Internet Lines: 20 Message-ID: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-122-29-188.btinternet.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49083 Why do people stateside always wine on about regions. ;-) In the UK and the rest of Europe everyone (or at least a lot of people) use multi-region players that read any region, it doesn't concern us. Actually it works out well, because we can order a region 1 dvd from America often before the film itself has even been released in Europe! Most TV's in Europe and the far east will understand pal *and* ntsc with a suitable SCART cable, this is definatly the case in the UK at least. Is the problem in the US that your TVs can only understand Ntsc? If that is the case then I see why you have a problem with this, a shame really, but I thought your manufacturers would have looked at this situation by now. Regards Douglas ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 22 Aug 2001 23:39:00 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 87 Message-ID: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 998516340 1080 10.0.3.2 (22 Aug 2001 21:39:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2001 21:39:00 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49201 "Douglas Eckhart" writes: > Why do people stateside always wine on about regions. ;-) The same reason as people in Europe and Australia and everywhere else do: because it is a PITA for people who want to play disks from anywhere (imported because not locally on sale, bought on holiday, ...), that will not run on their players. Try as an European to import anime DVDs from Japan, or as an Australian to try an get US/Europe DVDs not published there. Just because you have paid for the DVD does not any more give you the ability to actualy use it in the crazy world of region coding. > In the UK and the rest of Europe everyone (or at least a lot of people) use > multi-region players that read any region, it doesn't concern us. Only in those places where they are available (= where they are not declared illegal). Here in Switzerland multi-region is a legal requirement (region-limiting is illegal, against consumer choice protection laws), but only one country further north (Germany) multi-region is illegal. Even selling non-Europe region DVDs is. Consequently here actually exists an Switzerland->Germany DVD player and DVD smuggling business, including customs crackdowns on the smugglers. > Actually it works out well, because we can order a region 1 dvd from > America often before the film itself has even been released in Europe! Those of us who have such players. The rest not. > Most TV's in Europe and the far east will understand pal *and* ntsc with a > suitable SCART cable, this is definatly the case in the UK at least. But irrelevant for DVDs. Region coding is an separate deliberate breaking of compatibility, in additon to this. > Is the problem in the US that your TVs can only understand Ntsc? No, it is the problem that the players are deliberately broken by the manufacturers. > If that is the case then I see why you have a problem with this, a shame > really, but I thought your manufacturers would have looked at this situation > by now. The manufacturers are forced by law to break them. Actually they are forced by the combination of: - the DVD producing firms use of CSS coding (which is secret) - need to implement a CSS decoder, which can only be licensed from the DVD CCA (who knows (made) the secret) - CSS decoder copyright license that demands that the player implement region limiting and other brokenness (no fast forward at discretion of the DVD publisher) - else it is a breach of copyright, which since 1998 is a felony (not just a civil charge) in the US. Not kidding, that really is the legal situation. The MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America) has actualy sued and had arrested an _Norwegian_ kid for producing an CSS decoder (libdecss) and distributing it over the Internet. This is a "circumvention device" in the sense of the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) of the US copyright code, and as such an federal felony in the US. That a Norwegian is not in US jurisdiction seems to be irrelevant to them. Dito they have sued a journalist (2600 e-zine) for re-publishing the code in a article, and many web site owners, some even just for publishing links to this code. Further into on this crapy law and the fighht against it at: http://www.eff.org/ Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:18:19 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.35.6f.50 X-Server-Date: 22 Aug 2001 20:16:06 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!surfnet.nl!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49394 Douglas Eckhart wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >Why do people stateside always wine on about regions. ;-) >In the UK and the rest of Europe everyone (or at least a lot of people) use There are several active and flourishing newsgroups about DVDs. Since your article has nothing to do with Tolkien, perhaps one of them would be a more appropriate place for it. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com/ "That was a stupid lie, easy to expose, not worthy of you." George Sanders as "Addison Dewitt" in /All About Eve/ (1950) ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 23 Aug 2001 23:07:10 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 42 Message-ID: <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 998600830 499 10.0.3.2 (23 Aug 2001 21:07:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 21:07:10 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49399 brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) writes: > Douglas Eckhart wrote in > rec.arts.books.tolkien: > >Why do people stateside always wine on about regions. ;-) > >In the UK and the rest of Europe everyone (or at least a lot of people) use > > There are several active and flourishing newsgroups about DVDs. Who most likely like yet annother "what is this region stuff" outsider just as much as we here like yet annother "Tolkien is a racist" outsider. > Since your article has nothing to do with Tolkien, As opposed to thousands of posts of "creation" tread, the value of jesus, legalities of silence, US politics, ... :-) A news group is a place where people of a commen interest, denoted in the group name, here Tolkien, come together and discuss. Sometimes about that interest, sometimes about other things that interest enough of them. The later possibly with an topic-specific slant. > perhaps one of > them would be a more appropriate place for it. Actually DVDs have an Tolkien angle: TheFilm(TM) will be coming out on DVD, most likely with region limits, and possibly with the directors cut varying/missing on the different regions (common for DVDs). This will no doubt produce "its missing here" discussions. Some people may try to get complete versions just to have them fail to work. Also some people may be buying players just for this DVD. Best to give them an advance warning of the problems they may meet, so that they can try to avoid them, before losing money. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 18:18:35 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 32 Message-ID: References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.35.6f.bf X-Server-Date: 23 Aug 2001 22:15:20 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49548 Neil Franklin wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) writes: >> Douglas Eckhart wrote in >> rec.arts.books.tolkien: >>>Why do people stateside always wine on about regions. ;-) >>>In the UK and the rest of Europe everyone (or at least a lot of people) use >> >> There are several active and flourishing newsgroups about DVDs. >Who most likely like yet annother "what is this region stuff" outsider >just as much as we here like yet annother "Tolkien is a racist" outsider. Excellent point! I should have given the URL of the DVD FAQ, and I take this opportunity to remedy that lack. (See below.) >Actually DVDs have an Tolkien angle: TheFilm(TM) will be coming out on >DVD, most likely with region limits, and possibly with the directors >cut varying/missing on the different regions (common for DVDs). Oh please! Tolkien undoubtedly ate, but that doesn't mean random requests for recipes are on topic. He read books, but that doesn't mean discussion of just any book is on topic. _When_ there's a Tolkien DVD, then _that_ one will be on topic here. Others still won't be. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com DVD FAQ: http://dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html other FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: bnh@chem.ucla.edu (Bruce N. Hietbrink) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 17:51:39 -0700 Organization: UCLA Chemistry Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: houkdhcp247.chem.ucla.edu X-Trace: siamese.noc.ucla.edu 998614317 25686 169.232.140.247 (24 Aug 2001 00:51:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@ucla.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 00:51:57 +0000 (UTC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.news.ucla.edu!houkdhcp247.chem.ucla.edu!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49530 In article , brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) wrote: > Oh please! Tolkien undoubtedly ate, but that doesn't mean random > requests for recipes are on topic. Since you bring it up, does someone have a good recipe for a Chinese dish that translates to something that is essentially "shrimp with mayo and walnuts"? I've tried a couple of recipes, but can't get the sauce to come out anything like the restaurants. On topic because halfling = shrimp. Bruce ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 10:41:13 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.35.6f.26 X-Server-Date: 24 Aug 2001 14:37:53 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!fu-berlin.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49560 Bruce N. Hietbrink wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >On topic because halfling = shrimp. We are not amused. :-) -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien/ Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: "Douglas Eckhart" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 20:27:18 +0100 Organization: BT Internet Lines: 14 Message-ID: <9m69pb$nhi$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-122-180-68.btinternet.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49522 > > Since your article has nothing to do with Tolkien, > > perhaps one of > > them would be a more appropriate place for it. Why do some people insist on stating the obvious...... Check the subject - 'OT' Doh! If you dont want to read it then dont, and stop bothering me! Douglas ###### From: "Leo Fellmann" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Lines: 16 Organization: Orc Hordes X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: <0Jzh7.477$OY2.1803353@nnrp3.proxad.net> Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 21:31:40 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.27.37.183 X-Complaints-To: abuse@proxad.net X-Trace: nnrp3.proxad.net 998688700 212.27.37.183 (Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:31:40 CEST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:31:40 CEST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!opentransit.net!proxad.net!feeder2-1.proxad.net!nnrp3.proxad.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49488 "Neil Franklin" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > Here in Switzerland multi-region is a legal requirement (region-limiting > is illegal, against consumer choice protection laws), WTF? Do you mean they have to be sold region-unlimited or able to have the limitation removed? and is this valid for DVD-rom drives? Because I'm writing this on a new Medion PC, bought in Basel, and the fecking thing has a RS-whatever drive, locked onto region 2. Strange ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:02:06 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 26 Message-ID: References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9m69pb$nhi$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.35.7e.c5 X-Server-Date: 25 Aug 2001 02:59:45 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49553 Douglas Eckhart wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: > >> > Since your article has nothing to do with Tolkien, >> > perhaps one of >> > them would be a more appropriate place for it. > >Why do some people insist on stating the obvious...... Check the subject - >'OT' >Doh! > >If you dont want to read it then dont, and stop bothering me! You've got it backwards, m'dear. Putting "OT" on an off-topic article does not make it proper: it just shows that you know the rules but think you're too important to follow them. And for the record, I did answer your question a couple of rounds ago, by giving you the appropriate URL. We'll take your "thank you" as read, shall we? -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com/ "Really, Dr. Fara, such folly smacks of genius. A lesser mind would be incapable of it." --Isaac Asimov, /Foundation/ ###### From: Sylver Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 21:34:43 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <3B872AE3.41E9CAEA@subdimension.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.74 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 20 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!sn-xit-04!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49462 Stan Brown wrote: > > We are not amused. :-) Are "we" royalty then? I'm finding this amusing. Then again, sarcasm often is amusing to me. Geannie (sylver) -- Call your damnable hunt, And we shall see, Who I drag, Screaming to hell with me! ~Gunter Diorn ###### From: "Laurie J. Campos" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Lines: 30 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Message-ID: <1EOh7.16740$Fy3.1960038461@newssvr15.news.prodigy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.67.74.44 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr15.news.prodigy.com 998749821 1180380 216.67.74.44 (Sat, 25 Aug 2001 10:30:21 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 10:30:21 EDT Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 14:30:21 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!newscon06.news.prodigy.com!newsmst01.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr15.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49574 "Stan Brown" wrote in message news:MPG.15ef4b41f3959f3798c7a6@news.mindspring.com... > > _When_ there's a Tolkien DVD, then _that_ one will be on topic here. > Others still won't be. > There **are** Tolkien related DVDs coming out on Sept. 11th in region 1 which **should** be considered on topic. I was actually a bit surprised to see the original post here since this group is completely free of region related complaints. Alt.video.dvd has plenty of region related flaming and discussions of multi-region players. IIRC (and according to google), I am the only person here who even mentioned regions here until now and those posts were purely information in response to questions about whether to buy VHS versions on ebay. Once the Bakshi DVD is released, I suspect there will be some flaming here, though. Anyway, just my two cents... -- Laurie Campos (lcampos@alum.mit.edu) ###### From: "Douglas Eckhart" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 15:43:51 +0100 Organization: BT Internet Lines: 28 Message-ID: <9m8dhs$bfg$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9m69pb$nhi$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-122-15-206.btinternet.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49677 "Stan Brown" wrote in message news:MPG.15f0df35e72a0ee98c7b3@news.mindspring.com... > You've got it backwards, m'dear. Putting "OT" on an off-topic > article does not make it proper: it just shows that you know the > rules but think you're too important to follow them. > > And for the record, I did answer your question a couple of rounds > ago, by giving you the appropriate URL. We'll take your "thank you" > as read, shall we? And we'll take your irritating condescending arrogant tone as read as well shall we? If you wish to be some self appointed net-police who insist in sticking their noses in where it isn't wanted and reading posts which you had ample opportunity to ignore if you did not have an opinion on the subject..... well, that's your fetish I suppose. But please, try to get a grip. Almost 100% of my posts have been on topic. If I wish to post an *extremely rare* off topic post to the group, which has 'OS' prefixed in the subject header, then I will, I will not be dictated to by the likes of you.... Go away! Regards Douglas ###### From: "Laurie J. Campos" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9m69pb$nhi$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m8dhs$bfg$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Lines: 31 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.67.74.44 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr15.news.prodigy.com 998754743 1180380 216.67.74.44 (Sat, 25 Aug 2001 11:52:23 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 11:52:23 EDT Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 15:52:23 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!newscon06.news.prodigy.com!newsmst01.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr15.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49576 "Douglas Eckhart" wrote in message news:9m8dhs$bfg$1@plutonium.btinternet.com... > As someone who has been posting in the past about Tolkien related DVDs, I think the region question **will** be on topic shortly for the batch of videos that are about to be released. Also, you got a good answer quickly with far less flaming that you would have gotten on alt.video.dvd (the Dr. Who newsgroup is where I've seen the most vehement griping about DVDs not being available in region 1). Of course, the RB DVDs and the Bakshi DVD are all coming out in region 1 first so there is nothing to complain about (except the rumor that the Bakshi DVD will be Pan & Scan...). Part of the problem too is that DVDphiles never seem to be happy (part of your original post, too) and I suspect Stan doesn't want to see those sorts of threads get started over here. Anyway, even if OT, I thought it was an interesting thread because you got good knowledgeable answers. Just my two cents... -- Laurie Campos (lcampos@alum.mit.edu) ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 26 Aug 2001 23:32:49 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 37 Message-ID: <6uitfa5wxq.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <0Jzh7.477$OY2.1803353@nnrp3.proxad.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 998861570 736 10.0.3.2 (26 Aug 2001 21:32:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Aug 2001 21:32:50 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49692 "Leo Fellmann" writes: > "Neil Franklin" schrieb im Newsbeitrag > news:6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > Here in Switzerland multi-region is a legal requirement (region-limiting > > is illegal, against consumer choice protection laws), > > WTF? > > Do you mean they have to be sold region-unlimited or able to have the > limitation removed? AFAIK either is allowed. Mostly they are sold region-free these days (less cost to the manufacturer). > and is this valid for DVD-rom drives? The device involved was a standallone player. But I would assume it to also be the case for drives. Although you here have a problem that drives seem to be not localised, i.e. will need converting. I have the whole thing from an colleague, who sent his Sony device in to them to have it retrofitted to work any region. They even did it for free (in the meantime they charge an service charge). Base of the whole thing is/was a Bundesgericht pronounciation, that region limits are againts the consumer choice laws. I have not managed to find the actual text on the Bundesgerichts website though (only has texts from 2000 on). But as Sony did the conversion, I assume it to really exist. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: "Leo Fellmann" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1EOh7.16740$Fy3.1960038461@newssvr15.news.prodigy.com> Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Lines: 12 Organization: Orc Hordes X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 20:45:08 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.27.36.160 X-Complaints-To: abuse@proxad.net X-Trace: nnrp3.proxad.net 998858708 212.27.36.160 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 22:45:08 CEST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 22:45:08 CEST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newscore.gigabell.net!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!deine.net!proxad.net!feeder2-1.proxad.net!nnrp3.proxad.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49761 "Laurie J. Campos" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:1EOh7.16740$Fy3.1960038461@newssvr15.news.prodigy.com... > Once the Bakshi DVD is released, I suspect there will be some flaming here, > though. What??? I will definitly buy that just for comic value. ###### From: orius@webtv.net (David Sulger) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 23:25:30 -0400 (EDT) Organization: WebTV Subscriber Lines: 16 Message-ID: <13025-3B89BDAA-333@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> References: <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.webtv.net Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Content-Type: Text/Plain; Charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-WebTV-Signature: 1 ETAsAhQaWDx4P4a1/CtTg52/GE/umWmu1QIUOKGZdjzpuomrCCscM2G3Qe9X+SA= Content-Disposition: Inline Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!webtv.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49721 Neil Franklin wrote: >>Since your article has nothing to do >>with Tolkien, >As opposed to thousands of posts of >"creation" tread, I think Stan fears to take on the Mighty Creation Thread (tm). :) --Dave ds50.geo @ yahoo.com Assorted Tolkien stuff: http://www.geocities.com/ds50.geo/tolkien ###### From: orius@webtv.net (David Sulger) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 23:35:53 -0400 (EDT) Organization: WebTV Subscriber Lines: 34 Message-ID: <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.webtv.net Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Content-Type: Text/Plain; Charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-WebTV-Signature: 1 ETAtAhQLEaTNyzahXydkWzaFdRwGVnuaMQIVAKVJEoZiwec6L7v4atUjPRNxjx3L Content-Disposition: Inline Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!webtv.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49714 Neil Franklin wrote: >Further into on this crapy law and the >fighht against it at: http://www.eff.org/ >Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil >rights group. These laws originally were designed to prevent piracy. After all, China, Russia, and a number of other backwards countries have no concept of protecting copyrights. Of course now we see companies protecting their "intellectual property" with an almost dragon-like ferocity. This was the attitude that led to the death of Napster, and is also responsible for this DVD region code stupidity. These incompatiblities are almost akin to consumer gouging. If they're going to bother creating all these seperate regions, then they should go through the trouble of releasing the exact same material in each reason, and if that burns too big a hole in their abysmally deep pockets, too bad. Consumers of course shoulder some of the blame. If they don't like how the RIAA or MPAA or any of these other worthless organizations are handling things, then they should launch a huge boycott. This will make the companies lose money, which they'll notice, since money is the bottom line. The only problem is that there are too many consumers who are either too materialistic or lazy to take a stand against some of this ridiculous nonsense. --Dave ds50.geo @ yahoo.com Assorted Tolkien stuff: http://www.geocities.com/ds50.geo/tolkien ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 02:57:03 -0400 Lines: 18 Message-ID: <3B89EF3F.5C58B2B8@erols.com> References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9m69pb$nhi$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m8dhs$bfg$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVZj8ByN7pAjMuBJ0MVjTHt/637boZp6hX71rbBphmIdfpqOb2qCHRCA X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 07:10:48 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49702 Douglas Eckhart wrote: > Almost 100% of my posts have been on topic. > If I wish to post an *extremely rare* off topic post to the group, which has > 'OS' prefixed in the subject header, then I will, > I will not be dictated to by the likes of you.... Go away! You sure wouldn't know from all this that Stan also posts off-topic, without an "OT" warning, e.g. his bizarre religous opinions. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 02:58:30 -0400 Lines: 16 Message-ID: <3B89EF96.71B0A27C@erols.com> References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9m69pb$nhi$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m8dhs$bfg$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbTrJRPzV0mnLBnvPBemQLH/13KbUXybCFEuj/HDckYCAg+/H1LSEWr X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 07:11:06 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49699 "Laurie J. Campos" wrote: > Of course, the RB DVDs and the Bakshi DVD are > all coming out in region 1 first so there is nothing to complain about > (except the rumor that the Bakshi DVD will be Pan & Scan...). What does Pan & Scan mean? -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 03:02:57 -0400 Lines: 17 Message-ID: <3B89F0A1.A1AC51F7@erols.com> References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbDWkpXkLw1zBgHF4w7/pzTyD6wxC1FiPqtwE+nUTiILk/aZPd/CYQl X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 07:11:12 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49698 Stan Brown wrote: > Oh please! Tolkien undoubtedly ate, but that doesn't mean random > requests for recipes are on topic. Well, the English don't have cuisine, only food (as Hercule Poirot said). But there have been questions on this NG about what kind of pipe tobacco JRRT smoked. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: "Ashford Wyrd" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 13:24:27 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9m69pb$nhi$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m8dhs$bfg$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <3B89EF96.71B0A27C@erols.com> X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 17 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feeder.qis.net!sn-xit-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49773 "Flame of the West" wrote in message news:3B89EF96.71B0A27C@erols.com... > > "Laurie J. Campos" wrote: > > > Of course, the RB DVDs and the Bakshi DVD are > > all coming out in region 1 first so there is nothing to complain about > > (except the rumor that the Bakshi DVD will be Pan & Scan...). > > What does Pan & Scan mean? It means that a movie shot (drawn) in windscreen is shown in such way that you only see part of the original screen (hopefully the most important part... the part with the action going on) ###### From: "Douglas Eckhart" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 19:49:47 +0100 Organization: BT Internet Lines: 17 Message-ID: <9me4mu$ant$1@uranium.btinternet.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-122-39-245.btinternet.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49782 > These laws originally were designed to prevent piracy. After all, > China, Russia, and a number of other backwards countries have no concept > of protecting copyrights. These sorts of comments are offensive, remember that the internet is an 'internatonal' medium, not just the US. Although I live in the UK, I take offence at the tone of this, and if I happened to live in one of those countries, I would be even more so! Try to have some consideration for other net users eh? Regards Douglas ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 17:24:56 -0400 Lines: 29 Message-ID: <3B8ABAA4.1AF7F4A5@erols.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVarithkFNjAtzcdwS88GKUPuV8d1Enj1nNhJ3a9YdrXTU6O1mw0msaZ X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 21:45:18 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49829 Douglas Eckhart wrote: >> These laws originally were designed to prevent piracy. After all, >> China, Russia, and a number of other backwards countries have no concept >> of protecting copyrights. > These sorts of comments are offensive, remember that the internet is an > 'internatonal' medium, not just the US. > Although I live in the UK, I take offence at the tone of this, and if I > happened to live in one of those countries, I would be even more so! > Try to have some consideration for other net users eh? Oh, pack it in, will you? I don't know about the Russians, but the Chinese have openly defied world copyright laws for years. Whether you or anyone else likes it or not, this is a sign of a backward nation not yet ready for ciivilized trade. Their government is barbaric, and if that offends anyone it's just too bad, they can stop torturing their harmless religious groups like Falon Gong and stop stealing everyone else's intellectual property. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:27 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 13 Message-ID: References: <9m0mks$n94$1@uranium.btinternet.com> <6uwv3uwkn5.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9m69pb$nhi$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m8dhs$bfg$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <3B89EF3F.5C58B2B8@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.35.6f.90 X-Server-Date: 28 Aug 2001 04:06:58 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49902 Flame of the West wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >You sure wouldn't know from all this that Stan also posts off-topic, >without an "OT" warning, e.g. his bizarre religous opinions. Eye of the beholder, Schweetiepooples. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com/ "Don't move, or I'll fill you full of [... pause ...] little yellow bolts of light." -- Farscape, first episode ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:08:49 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 27 Message-ID: References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <9me4mu$ant$1@uranium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.35.6f.90 X-Server-Date: 28 Aug 2001 04:09:19 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!howland.erols.net!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49908 Douglas Eckhart wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: [unfortunately failing to attribute his quote] >> These laws originally were designed to prevent piracy. After all, >> China, Russia, and a number of other backwards countries have no concept >> of protecting copyrights. > > >These sorts of comments are offensive, remember that the internet is an >'internatonal' medium, not just the US. > >Although I live in the UK, I take offence at the tone of this, and if I >happened to live in one of those countries, I would be even more so! >Try to have some consideration for other net users eh? Perhaps you should aim your indignation at a more worthy target -- namely the countries that fail to respect copyright and (in the case of China at least) actively encourage theft of authors' works. That is what is offensive. You're just blaming the messenger. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com/ "Really, Dr. Fara, such folly smacks of genius. A lesser mind would be incapable of it." --Isaac Asimov, /Foundation/ ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 28 Aug 2001 22:37:33 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 88 Message-ID: <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 999031054 641 10.0.3.2 (28 Aug 2001 20:37:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Aug 2001 20:37:34 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49913 orius@webtv.net (David Sulger) writes: > Neil Franklin wrote: > > >Further into on this crapy law and the > >fighht against it at: http://www.eff.org/ > >Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil > >rights group. > > These laws originally were designed to prevent piracy. Communism originally was designed to prevent exploitation. A law consists of more than the intentions (or rather the creators claims about these). Things such as fitness for the purpose and respect for society also enter in. The DMCA clearly is unfit for its purpose (try preventing a speaker to microphone copy with any digital encryption measure) and totally disrespects society (any form of legitimate copying such as backups, transfer to tape for listening in the car, citations). > China, Russia, and a number of other backwards countries have no concept > of protecting copyrights. China I do not know. No comment. But Russia definitely has copyright laws. From the commenting around the Dimitry Sklyarow case I even know that is contains an explicit article guaranteeing the right to backups[1]. This is what made the program he wrote for his employer Elcomsoft legal in Russia. [1] so does also the copyright law here in Switzerland, not exactly known as hotbed of piracy, nor as backward country http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/231_1/a24.html (in German) SR 231.1 Bundesgesetz über das Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte Art. 24 Archivierungs- und Sicherungsexemplare If you ment that to be read as "the people in these countries have no concept of copyright and no moral doubts about copying", then I have to inform you about 60mio Napster users. The bigger part of US and european population has not notion of copyright either. This is not really surprising, as copyright never has been an intuitive law. Copying and sharing knowledge and music is actually a basic mode of human behaviour and not an obviously destructive act (like slander or stealing or murder). The entire notion of copyright is just an artificially generated contract between government and authors, where most people where never informed about its contents nor implications (good or bad). > Of course now we see companies protecting their "intellectual property" > with an almost dragon-like ferocity. Give em a finger and they will take a hand. Normal greed. Lawmakers should know to figure this in when designing laws. Simply asking an interest group to write what they would like and then rubber stamping it is not exactly the proper way: http://www.msen.com/~litman/digital-copyright/ch2.html The Art of Making Copyright Laws > the death of Napster, and is also responsible for this DVD region code > stupidity. Actually that one could have been pulled off without law support. > Consumers of course shoulder some of the blame. If they don't like how > the RIAA or MPAA or any of these other worthless organizations are > handling things, then they should launch a huge boycott. Completely agreed in this part. One reason why I most likely will not be getting an LotR disk and DVD player to view it (it is unlikely that New Age Cinema will release it without region limit, which is my condition for buying one). -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: "Douglas Eckhart" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 22:35:52 +0100 Organization: BT Internet Lines: 60 Message-ID: <9mh2r1$5vn$1@uranium.btinternet.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <3B8ABAA4.1AF7F4A5@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-122-16-195.btinternet.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!bromo.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!grolier!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50036 "Flame of the West" wrote in message > Oh, pack it in, will you? I don't know about the Russians, but the > Chinese have openly defied world copyright laws for years. Whether > you or anyone else likes it or not, this is a sign of a backward nation > not yet ready for ciivilized trade. Civilised trade? Nice one, what's funny is when some Americans rant on about how advanced they are and how they are a civilising force in the world, but the reality is that most wars and cruel regimes have some western involvement in the form of arms trade or funding regimes which support the west. Western arms companies supply many African nations with the weapons with which they use to kill each... yeah, very advanced, and they financially support regimes that are beneficial to the west. Atrocities, Do you know that western powers, inc the US and UK fully supported and helped the murderous regime of Indonesia, which led to the deaths of thousands of civilians, just because the regime would open up the trade markets to western corporate like Nike, Next etc, so they could run third world sweat shops - check your shirt labels, most likely, your Next top or Nike trainers were made in some mafia controlled joint by someone being paid the equivalent of $0.1 per day. The WTO called the operation in Indonesia an 'outstanding success'. The reality is that western powers are built on the back of third world slave labour. Don't worry, I'm not just saying this of the US - Europe and the UK (where I live) are equally bad, the UK especially. The UK's arms trade sells weapons to anyone, Many UK troops serving in Sierra Leon are guarding against troops armed with weapons sold to them by the UK in the first place! The Gulf war was the same, Saddam was armed with weapons bought from the US Europe and Russia. >Their government is barbaric, and > if that offends anyone it's just too bad, they can stop torturing > their harmless religious groups like Falon Gong and stop stealing > everyone else's intellectual property. Unfortunately our governments only encourage this situation as it benefits the west, so we are just as bad, look up the details on Indonesia if you want the whole horrific story. We just manage to 'distance' ourselves from it. In some ways its worse, because at leat the regimes don't pretend to be morally correct and just whether we put on a pretense of being so. Have you ever wondered what all the people are protesting about at G7 summits and Globilisation talks etc? This is the reality upon which the might of the west is built upon. It's all there if you care to look. > -- FotW > > Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. I would agree with that! Regards Douglas ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 20:12:01 -0400 Lines: 19 Message-ID: <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbtXcWPwVeEdArN/QeDjwJGqS5o7y+xIvRZrc7z6GOsusQE4RIdyrYQ X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 29 Aug 2001 00:15:55 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49914 Neil Franklin wrote: > One reason why I most likely will not > be getting an LotR disk and DVD player to view it (it is unlikely that > New Age Cinema will release it without region limit, which is my > condition for buying one). Why don't you just buy one of those European players that play regardless of region? That way you can be true to your principles and yet view LotR, which no one should be without. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: orius@webtv.net (David Sulger) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 23:53:40 -0400 (EDT) Organization: WebTV Subscriber Lines: 22 Message-ID: <22728-3B8C6744-143@storefull-258.iap.bryant.webtv.net> References: <9me4mu$ant$1@uranium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.webtv.net Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Content-Type: Text/Plain; Charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-WebTV-Signature: 1 ETAsAhQ/nJ14aPLKD/rJ2+6ZtJQbTY5U2AIUIgRp25ZkO5r5MCOInWjdjGUyQiE= Content-Disposition: Inline Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!bromo.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!171.64.14.106!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!webtv.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49934 Douglas Eckhart wrote: >>These laws originally were designed to >>prevent piracy. After all, China, Russia, >>and a number of other backwards >>countries have no concept of protecting >>copyrights. >These sorts of comments are offensive, >remember that the internet is an >'internatonal' medium, not just the US. Is this supposed to bother me? The countries that don't support copyright laws don't care if they steal peoples work and profit off it for their own benefit, so why should they be defended for it? --Dave ds50.geo @ yahoo.com Assorted Tolkien stuff: http://www.geocities.com/ds50.geo/tolkien ###### From: orius@webtv.net (David Sulger) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 23:58:43 -0400 (EDT) Organization: WebTV Subscriber Lines: 30 Message-ID: <22728-3B8C6873-145@storefull-258.iap.bryant.webtv.net> References: <3B8ABAA4.1AF7F4A5@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.webtv.net Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Content-Type: Text/Plain; Charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-WebTV-Signature: 1 ETAtAhUAk2x2HYb6gw4tAdmoaFzDy4F3AQ0CFAN65lGmna8Ix7ZhrKL1/V2lqlsj Content-Disposition: Inline Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!bromo.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.bme.hu!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!171.64.14.106!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!webtv.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49937 Flame of the West wrote: >>I take offence at the tone of this, and if I >>happened to live in one of those >>countries, I would be even more so! Try >>to have some consideration for other >>net users eh? >Oh, pack it in, will you? I don't know >about the Russians, but the Chinese >have openly defied world copyright laws >for years. Whether you or anyone else >likes it or not, this is a sign of a >backward nation not yet ready for >ciivilized trade. Their government is >barbaric, and if that offends anyone it's >just too bad, Besides, it's not likely many Chinese citizens are going to read my post anyway. Their government has a firewall set up so that the people can't see anything party officials don't want them to see. That would likely include most of Usenet. Anyone caught trying to circumvent said firewall is thrown in prison. --Dave ds50.geo @ yahoo.com Assorted Tolkien stuff: http://www.geocities.com/ds50.geo/tolkien ###### From: "Douglas Eckhart" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 13:55:54 +0100 Organization: BT Internet Lines: 24 Message-ID: <9mionb$lmb$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> References: <3B8ABAA4.1AF7F4A5@erols.com> <22728-3B8C6873-145@storefull-258.iap.bryant.webtv.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-122-56-188.btinternet.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!bromo.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!btnet-peer1!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50067 "David Sulger" wrote in message news:22728-3B8C6873-145@storefull-258.iap.bryant.webtv.net... > Besides, it's not likely many Chinese citizens are going to read my post > anyway. Their government has a firewall set up so that the people can't > see anything party officials don't want them to see. That would likely > include most of Usenet. Anyone caught trying to circumvent said > firewall is thrown in prison. > > --Dave What planet are you on? Have you never considered the many thousands of Chinese, russian etc students that live and study abroad, in the US and Europe? There's plenty of them to read your posts, I have plenty of Chinese friends who are living in the UK at present who use the net frequently. Or do you think that different nationalities to yourself just sit nicely in their respective countries and never venture outside. Sounds like you've reading to much about the Shire in Tlotr! Douglas ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 12:09:08 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 16 Message-ID: References: <3B8ABAA4.1AF7F4A5@erols.com> <22728-3B8C6873-145@storefull-258.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <9mionb$lmb$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.35.6f.6a X-Server-Date: 29 Aug 2001 16:09:32 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:49917 Douglas Eckhart wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >Have you never considered the many thousands of Chinese, russian etc >students that live and study abroad, in the US and Europe? >There's plenty of them to read your posts, I have plenty of Chinese friends >who are living in the UK at present who use the net frequently. Good. Then they should know what their governments are doing wrong. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien/ Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 29 Aug 2001 22:54:07 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 38 Message-ID: <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 999118447 4972 10.0.3.2 (29 Aug 2001 20:54:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 29 Aug 2001 20:54:07 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50098 Flame of the West writes: > Neil Franklin wrote: > > > One reason why I most likely will not > > be getting an LotR disk and DVD player to view it (it is unlikely that > > New Age Cinema will release it without region limit, which is my > > condition for buying one). > > Why don't you just buy one of those European players that > play regardless of region? Problem is not the player makers (since multi-region players they are off the hook and actually now victims of collateral damage), but the movie/DVD companies that release "broken" disks. Rewarding them is the problem that has to be avoided. > That way you can be true to > your principles and Unfortunately not. That is why I referred to "unlikely .. release without limit". > yet view LotR, which no one should be without. I will get to see the film, by going to the cinema, as that has nothing to do with DVD brokenness. But social concious is more important than having an LotR DVD. One thing one can learn from reading LotR. So no DVD nor player here. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 19:45:26 -0400 Lines: 20 Message-ID: <3B8D7E90.D62A4749@erols.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbCr3ADBESmsnqVd5GGX2lNz3OTH1fez4PfXahuMGusGDVKjze+ph8G X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 29 Aug 2001 23:56:03 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsmi-eu.news.garr.it!NewsITBone-GARR!newscore.univie.ac.at!194.25.134.126.MISMATCH!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.germany.net!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!howland.erols.net!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50119 Neil Franklin wrote: > But social concious is more important than having an LotR DVD. Not for me! My top priorities are: (1) God (2) Country (3) Having a LotR DVD (4) Scottish traditional music (5) Social conscience. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 19:51:24 -0400 Lines: 27 Message-ID: <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbWL9RL/bbdWJCwqPOQbhK1tUI4GKa4er/O97NdfK8rdKqvPF4plxIy X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 29 Aug 2001 23:56:04 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!isdnet!howland.erols.net!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50129 Neil Franklin wrote: > Problem is not the player makers (since multi-region players they are > off the hook and actually now victims of collateral damage), but the > movie/DVD companies that release "broken" disks. Rewarding them is the > problem that has to be avoided. But is regional encoding *really* all that horrible? I am more offended by the commercials they stick in the beginning before the "feature presentation." Nothing is exactly the way we want it, and if we go off and boycott everything that annoys us in the slightest, we'll wind up slowing down the economy. > But social concious is more important than having an LotR DVD. But regional encoding, while stupid and annoying, is hardly a matter of social conscience. It's not like Tibet or slave labor or anything. Heck, Microsoft does five worse things a day before breakfast! I just don't see why it's so important that you'd boycott the entire technology. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: Tiffany Case Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 21:13:11 -0500 Organization: none Lines: 13 Message-ID: <3B8DA136.79EFA36B@yahoo.com> References: <3B8ABAA4.1AF7F4A5@erols.com> <22728-3B8C6873-145@storefull-258.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <9mionb$lmb$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> Reply-To: person53705@yahoo.com NNTP-Posting-Host: t-8-180-154.dialup.wisc.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.doit.wisc.edu 999137593 19142 144.92.180.154 (30 Aug 2001 02:13:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@doit.wisc.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 Aug 2001 02:13:13 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsspool.doit.wisc.edu!news.doit.wisc.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50123 Stan Brown wrote: > Douglas Eckhart wrote in > rec.arts.books.tolkien: > >Have you never considered the many thousands of Chinese, russian etc > >students that live and study abroad, in the US and Europe? > >There's plenty of them to read your posts, I have plenty of Chinese friends > >who are living in the UK at present who use the net frequently. > > Good. Then they know what their governments are doing wrong. ..thus putting them way ahead of most Americans.... ###### From: orius@webtv.net (David Sulger) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 22:58:15 -0400 (EDT) Organization: WebTV Subscriber Lines: 32 Message-ID: <13973-3B8DABC7-4@storefull-255.iap.bryant.webtv.net> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.webtv.net Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Content-Type: Text/Plain; Charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-WebTV-Signature: 1 ETAtAhUAjkRB+RCt/gJOHrxwZd453SOfNg8CFER2zbuxFLDmBTtPkqLuQcCgS/lv Content-Disposition: Inline Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!webtv.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50143 Stan Brown wrote: >Douglas Eckhart > wrote >in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >>Have you never considered the many >>thousands of Chinese, russian etc >>students that live and study abroad, in >>the US and Europe? There's plenty of >>them to read your posts, I have plenty >>of Chinese friends who are living in the >>UK at present who use the net >>frequently. >Good. Then they should know what their >governments are doing wrong. They probably do. Many Chinese dissidents are students, after all. Likely they learn the truth about their government when they're not under its censorship. Besides, Douglas is reading too much into my original post. My criticism was aimed at governments and copyright pirateers, not the people of those countries at large. --Dave ds50.geo @ yahoo.com Assorted Tolkien stuff: http://www.geocities.com/ds50.geo/tolkien ###### From: orius@webtv.net (David Sulger) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 23:01:27 -0400 (EDT) Organization: WebTV Subscriber Lines: 14 Message-ID: <19077-3B8DAC87-85@storefull-252.iap.bryant.webtv.net> References: <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.webtv.net Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Content-Type: Text/Plain; Charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-WebTV-Signature: 1 ETAsAhRIV4uHUv3LOyqtSxVa33SR3Kw6JwIUNMFWF0L2qZXN4eb8/96lVXP8sG0= Content-Disposition: Inline Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!webtv.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50154 Flame of the West wrote: >if we go off and boycott everything that >annoys us in the slightest, we'll wind up >slowing down the economy. So? Isn't money the root of all evil anyway? --Dave ds50.geo @ yahoo.com Assorted Tolkien stuff: http://www.geocities.com/ds50.geo/tolkien ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 20:37:13 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: References: <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <19077-3B8DAC87-85@storefull-252.iap.bryant.webtv.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 17 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!sn-xit-04!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50118 On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 23:01:27 -0400 (EDT), orius@webtv.net (David Sulger) wrote: >Flame of the West wrote: > >>if we go off and boycott everything that >>annoys us in the slightest, we'll wind up >>slowing down the economy. > >So? Isn't money the root of all evil anyway? > Nope, and the Bible doesn't say that it is either. Go check. the softrat mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- If I'm not speaking Ada then I'm not speaking for my employer. ###### From: the_real_orius@hotmail.com (David Sulger) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 31 Aug 2001 11:36:58 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 11 Message-ID: <3ac4908.0108311036.fb23333@posting.google.com> References: <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <19077-3B8DAC87-85@storefull-252.iap.bryant.webtv.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.54.54.250 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 999283019 18715 127.0.0.1 (31 Aug 2001 18:36:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 31 Aug 2001 18:36:59 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50266 the softrat wrote in message news:... > On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 23:01:27 -0400 (EDT), orius@webtv.net (David > Sulger) wrote: > > Isn't money the root of all evil anyway? > > > Nope, and the Bible doesn't say that it is either. Go check. > I didn't say that was in the Bible. --Dave ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 01 Sep 2001 01:53:16 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 162 Message-ID: <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 999301996 657 10.0.3.2 (31 Aug 2001 23:53:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 31 Aug 2001 23:53:16 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50349 Flame of the West writes: > Neil Franklin wrote: > > > Problem is not the player makers (since multi-region players they are > > off the hook and actually now victims of collateral damage), but the > > movie/DVD companies that release "broken" disks. Rewarding them is the > > problem that has to be avoided. > > But is regional encoding *really* all that horrible? Ever tried buying an DVD somewhere away from home? Say on a holiday trip. Doesn't work at home. Your money for buying it? Forget that. Ever wanted an DVD not published in your part of the world? Say an Anime that only came out in Japan (or possible translated in the US, but never out in Europe). Doesn't work. Ever wanted the full "directors cut" only available[1] in the US edition (assuming you were outside the US)? Does not work. [1] translating it was too expensive for the percieved sales. Ever moved to another country and tried to lend your DVDs to someone else? Does not work on their devices. Ever had then to replace your (broken) device after moving? Lose your DVD collection. You can not import one from your ex-home. That is illegal (yes, people have been sued for doing this!). And DVD is only the beginning of this general behaviour: Try the new "secure" music formats. You can not even copy them to another digital format (say MiniDisc) to listen on your car tape player (no streaming Internet in your car?). Analog goes because they can not (yet) prevent that. Not to mention MD devices that will not record from an other MiniDisk with _your_own_ recording because it may have been an commercial recording copied via analog input (they can not detect the difference, so they prohibit all). Yes such cases exist! Dito DAT tapes, bad luck if you wanted to record and process and copy for distribution your own recordings (you being an garage band or any other form of amateur musicians). Recording is only for those who can afford "studio" devices. How nice a way to get rid of the annoying competition. Be a nice and good consumer and do not disturb our profits. Try normal VHS tapes. New video players are required in the US by law to distort the output signal in a special way (called MacroVision) that does not disturb TVs, but all video recorders must recognize it and record crap. Goodby to that home video cutting lab. And yes, you pay via the player/recorder purchase price money to the firm that invented this brokenness. Try (legal, real, not the r.a.b.t) eBooks. They are even keyed to your one specific reading device. Have that device die and you go re-paying for all your eBooks. Backups, are you kidding? Real eBooks for real money? What an outdated concept! That is just the consumer side of all this. For creators (like me) the story is even worse. We are allready seeing prison sentances for just making programs that access information! I have an piece of hardware here that I want to drive from my computer. Unfortunately the vendors software has bugs and limits and is slow. I would like to replace it by my own software (I know how to do this). But to do this my software need to exactly replicate the control signals of the hardware. To do this I need to reverse-engineer the hardwares control registers (I know how to do this also). But the manufacturers software uses an "extension module" system that, to protect commercial module producers, implements an "secret" bit. Any description of the reverse engineering on my part will enable others to circumvent this bit and analyse commercial modules (I have no such modules and no such interest). So any reverse-engineering (if published) is by US law an "spreading of information for circumvention devices", and as such an federal felony. Unfortunately I can not give away my program (as I wish to do) without publishing these details (so others can modify my program for their uses). Thankfully I am not in the US, so I will be able to make and publish my program. But as consequence I will never be able to visit the US, else I get arrested there as criminal. This has happened to an russian who did this for eBook file formats (he wanted backups). And recent "harminisation" legal developments are leading to many "civilised" stated being prepared to arrest their own citizens for violating other countries laws (and recieving the others help for themselves)! This has also already happened [2][4]. [2] A Norwegian kid and his father (because the kid is less than 16 years old) was arrested on the request of the MPAA, an US organisation, for violating US(!) laws. He wanted to view his DVDs on a computer that did not have licensed software, so he wrote his own[3]. He was freed after the police noticed that the law he had broken was US law and not Norwegian law. Since then the Norwegian legal people are searching for any excuse to get him, so that they do not have to admit to unlawfull arrest due to insufficiently researching the case. [3] this software does not even enable copying DVDs, but it allows ignoring region codes. [4] An US website owner has been forced to stand before Australian court because his US website violates their over-strict libel laws. And it will only get worse, so long no one says NO! to the greedy and reckless media industry publishers who are behind all of this. Not surprisingly a lot of people like me have decided to boycott the media industry. It is our basic freedom to create that is at stake! > presentation." Nothing is exactly the way we want it, and if we > go off and boycott everything that annoys us in the slightest, > we'll wind up slowing down the economy. If I have the choice of an fucked up world and an fucked up economy, I know which I will chose! You can bet the entire turnover of all firms worldwide on this. > > But social concious is more important than having an LotR DVD. > > But regional encoding, while stupid and annoying, is hardly a matter > of social conscience. Destroying of society and freedom is. And regions are just the tip of that iceberg. Titanic beware. > It's not like Tibet or slave labor or anything. It is getting _rapidly_ as bad. The Soviet Union is starting to look like paradise (and the "iron curtain" was less than 300 miles from where I live, so I know what happened there). > Heck, Microsoft does five worse things a day before breakfast! MS is a harmless little child relative to the media industry. MS may bully others to spread their products and harm their competitors, but at least they do not use the law as their bullying device. > I just > don't see why it's so important that you'd boycott the entire technology. I hope I have described the problem sufficiently. If not, just post further questions. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 12:52:34 -0400 Lines: 221 Message-ID: <3B911251.E2062BA9@erols.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVZ0PPbh7X22WSEhb9rbA53MaptL6xLuLnAeaHS6b4f7/EhSVsGarF/T X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2001 16:56:33 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50436 Neil Franklin wrote: > > But is regional encoding *really* all that horrible? > > Ever tried buying an DVD somewhere away from home? Say on a holiday > trip. Doesn't work at home. Your money for buying it? Forget that. > > Ever wanted an DVD not published in your part of the world? Say an > Anime that only came out in Japan (or possible translated in the US, > but never out in Europe). Doesn't work. > > Ever wanted the full "directors cut" only available[1] in the US > edition (assuming you were outside the US)? Does not work. > > [1] translating it was too expensive for the percieved sales. > > Ever moved to another country and tried to lend your DVDs to someone > else? Does not work on their devices. > > Ever had then to replace your (broken) device after moving? Lose > your DVD collection. You can not import one from your ex-home. That is > illegal (yes, people have been sued for doing this!). Really? I hadn't heard that. And what about those Scandinavian players that play everything? I guess they're contraband in the English-speaking world? At any rate, I agree that all of those things are unfair and irritating. I just don't think it justifies boycotting the entire DVD format. BTW, does anyone understand how restricting regional sales boosts profits? If I order a DVD from Sony Europe rather than waiting for Sony USA to come out with it, I'm still giving my money to Sony, am I not? So why did they go to all this trouble? > And DVD is only the beginning of this general behaviour: > > Try the new "secure" music formats. > > You can not even copy them to another digital format (say MiniDisc) > to listen on your car tape player (no streaming Internet in your > car?). Analog goes because they can not (yet) prevent that. Well now you're hitting one of MY hot buttons. I absolutely HATE the agenda of the record companies. I'm sure they wish they had thought of doing to CD's what they do to DVD's, and now it's too late. So they try to replace CD's with "secure" online music. The really insidious thing with their new online services to replace Napster is that you can only rent the music, not buy it. Imagine the gall! One of their executives said openly, people are going to have to get used to renting music rather than buying it. I say SCREW YOU!! That *is* a technology I am going to boycott. I am willing to pay for my music (the stuff I tend to listen to is by artists that don't make much money, so I wouldn't want to stiff them), but I insist on *buying* it once and for all, and having it on CD where I can take it out with me. I will buy online music when I can copy it to CD. Fortunately, I read in the paper that people are not going for online music and the record companies are disappointed in this. > Not to mention MD devices that will not record from an other MiniDisk > with _your_own_ recording because it may have been an commercial > recording copied via analog input (they can not detect the difference, > so they prohibit all). Yes such cases exist! > > Dito DAT tapes, bad luck if you wanted to record and process and copy > for distribution your own recordings (you being an garage band or any > other form of amateur musicians). Recording is only for those who can > afford "studio" devices. How nice a way to get rid of the annoying > competition. Be a nice and good consumer and do not disturb our profits. I think that CD's are pretty universal, I'n not sure why anyone would still go with MD or DAT. Let those formats go the way of the Beta. > Try normal VHS tapes. New video players are required in the US by law > to distort the output signal in a special way (called MacroVision) > that does not disturb TVs, but all video recorders must recognize it > and record crap. Goodby to that home video cutting lab. And yes, you > pay via the player/recorder purchase price money to the firm that > invented this brokenness. This only applies to videos that have been so encoded. But you have a good point about no longer being able to cut undesirable scenes from movies (e.g. to make them OK for family viewing). But I have abandoned VHS anyway for DVD. I hate tapes of all sorts because they wear out. > Try (legal, real, not the r.a.b.t) eBooks. They are even keyed to > your one specific reading device. Have that device die and you go > re-paying for all your eBooks. Backups, are you kidding? Real eBooks > for real money? What an outdated concept! I hadn't heard this. This is unacceptable to me and I won't invest in any eBook system that does that. > That is just the consumer side of all this. For creators (like me) the > story is even worse. We are allready seeing prison sentances for just > making programs that access information! Are you talking about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? I too have heard some horror stories about that. What's really scary to me is that laws like that are the only things that Republicans and Democrats heartily agree on. > I have an piece of hardware here that I want to drive from my > computer. Unfortunately the vendors software has bugs and limits and > is slow. I would like to replace it by my own software (I know how to > do this). But to do this my software need to exactly replicate the > control signals of the hardware. To do this I need to reverse-engineer > the hardwares control registers (I know how to do this also). > > But the manufacturers software uses an "extension module" system that, > to protect commercial module producers, implements an "secret" bit. Any > description of the reverse engineering on my part will enable others > to circumvent this bit and analyse commercial modules (I have no such > modules and no such interest). So any reverse-engineering (if > published) is by US law an "spreading of information for circumvention > devices", and as such an federal felony. Unfortunately I can not give > away my program (as I wish to do) without publishing these details > (so others can modify my program for their uses). > > Thankfully I am not in the US, so I will be able to make and publish > my program. But as consequence I will never be able to visit the US, > else I get arrested there as criminal. This has happened to an russian > who did this for eBook file formats (he wanted backups). I heard about that just last week. I was shocked. But in practice no one will know what you did unless you advertise it by presenting your work in a conference or something, as the Russian dude did. > And recent "harminisation" legal developments are leading to many > "civilised" stated being prepared to arrest their own citizens for > violating other countries laws (and recieving the others help for > themselves)! This has also already happened [2][4]. Welcome to globalization! I think I was the only American who was shocked when the US arrested the dictator of Panama *in Panama*, shipped him here, and threw him in jail. This is the New World Order, and if you support the EU, you're part of the problem. > [2] A Norwegian kid and his father (because the kid is less than 16 > years old) was arrested on the request of the MPAA, an US organisation, > for violating US(!) laws. He wanted to view his DVDs on a computer > that did not have licensed software, so he wrote his own[3]. He was > freed after the police noticed that the law he had broken was US law > and not Norwegian law. Since then the Norwegian legal people are > searching for any excuse to get him, so that they do not have to admit > to unlawfull arrest due to insufficiently researching the case. I'd heard about this too. > [3] this software does not even enable copying DVDs, but it allows > ignoring region codes. See my earlier comment. I just do not understand why regional restrictions are so important to the industry. I get some of my Tolkien books from amazon.uk, but I don't see Houghton Mifflin going into the tank as a result. > [4] An US website owner has been forced to stand before Australian > court because his US website violates their over-strict libel laws. Welcome to globalization, my fellow Americans! When you demand the rest of the world play by the global rules, you must expect those rules to bite us in turn. Good old President Teddy Roosevelt would have told our Australian friends what they could do with their libel laws. But he wouldn't have pressured the Norwegians to arrest that boy, either. (OK, he'd have gone into Panama, he DID go into Panama, but to build a canal, not to make an arrest.) > And it will only get worse, so long no one says NO! to the greedy > and reckless media industry publishers who are behind all of this. I must say I agree with almost all that you say. I am boycotting almost all of their technology, with the exceptions of CD's and DVD's. But I draw the line there; I won't cut off my nose to spite my face. If I boycott DVD's, I lose more than the companies could take from me. > Not surprisingly a lot of people like me have decided to boycott the > media industry. It is our basic freedom to create that is at stake! > > But regional encoding, while stupid and annoying, is hardly a matter > > of social conscience. > > Destroying of society and freedom is. And regions are just the tip of > that iceberg. Titanic beware. > > > It's not like Tibet or slave labor or anything. > > It is getting _rapidly_ as bad. The Soviet Union is starting to look > like paradise (and the "iron curtain" was less than 300 miles from > where I live, so I know what happened there). OK, now I see where you're coming from. It's not just regional encoding you're objecting to, it's all the restrictions and how they enforce them. That wasn't clear to me before. > > Heck, Microsoft does five worse things a day before breakfast! > > MS is a harmless little child relative to the media industry. MS may > bully others to spread their products and harm their competitors, but > at least they do not use the law as their bullying device. Good point. > > I just > > don't see why it's so important that you'd boycott the entire technology. > > I hope I have described the problem sufficiently. If not, just post > further questions. Nope, you've made an impressive case. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 01 Sep 2001 22:06:20 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 148 Message-ID: <6uk7zioev7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B911251.E2062BA9@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 999374781 543 10.0.3.2 (1 Sep 2001 20:06:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2001 20:06:21 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50440 Flame of the West writes: > Neil Franklin wrote: > > > Ever had then to replace your (broken) device after moving? Lose > > your DVD collection. You can not import one from your ex-home. That is > > illegal (yes, people have been sued for doing this!). > > Really? I hadn't heard that. And what about those Scandinavian > players that play everything? I guess they're contraband in the > English-speaking world? Here where I am (Switzerland) those region-free players are also legal. Just north in Germany they are not. But some Germans want them (not surprisingly), leading to "gray imports". The German customs actually try to stop such imports the same as they try to stop drug trafficing. Same "sting" operations, arrests etc. Dito US-Region imported Disks were being sold in Germany (to those with region-free players) until the shops selling them got sued by the German arm of the movie industry. > BTW, does anyone understand how restricting regional sales > boosts profits? If I order a DVD from Sony Europe rather > than waiting for Sony USA to come out with it, I'm still giving > my money to Sony, am I not? So why did they go to all this > trouble? No one really seems to know. Officially to prevent DVD sales undercutting cinema ticket sales in countries where cinema showing is delayed. But given the coarse region scheme, and the use of region-limits on DVDs of decade old films (such as Casablanca), that is not particularly believable. Speculation is, it is to protect the distribution channels. To upkeep traditional "exclusive distributor" contracts. Seems a funny reason, but no one seems to have suggested an better one. > > Dito DAT tapes, bad luck if you wanted to record and process and copy > > for distribution your own recordings (you being an garage band or any > > other form of amateur musicians). Recording is only for those who can > > afford "studio" devices. How nice a way to get rid of the annoying > > competition. Be a nice and good consumer and do not disturb our profits. > > I think that CD's are pretty universal, I'n not sure why anyone would > still go with MD or DAT. Let those formats go the way of the Beta. Of course recordable CD is better. But DAT and MD show the trend of what the industry wants. And yes, they are working on schemes for making uncopyable CDs (actually un-readable and unplayable on computer CD drives). Bad look if you have no dedicated CD player and listen to them with your computer. > have a good point about no longer being able to cut undesirable > scenes from movies (e.g. to make them OK for family viewing). > But I have abandoned VHS anyway for DVD. Ever tried cutting DVDs and re-recording them? Will be technically possible when DVD writer drives appear on computers. Just the DVD encryption system will prevent you (unless you have Linux and use the arrested Norwegians libdecss program :-)). > > Try (legal, real, not the r.a.b.t) eBooks. They are even keyed to > > your one specific reading device. Have that device die and you go > > re-paying for all your eBooks. Backups, are you kidding? Real eBooks > > for real money? What an outdated concept! > > I hadn't heard this. This is unacceptable to me and I won't > invest in any eBook system that does that. All of them do it. Oh, and the eBook industry is baffled why noone is buying their stuff. > > That is just the consumer side of all this. For creators (like me) the > > story is even worse. We are allready seeing prison sentances for just > > making programs that access information! > > Are you talking about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? Yes. > have heard some horror stories about that. What's really scary > to me is that laws like that are the only things that Republicans > and Democrats heartily agree on. Yes. That also scares me. That means there is no way to vote against the DMCA supporters. I just _hope_ the supreme court does not fail us when the MPAA vs 2600[1] and the Felton[2] vs RIAA cases reach it. [1] Journalist who publised an article with a copy of libdecss code in it and got sued by MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America). [2] Professor of cryptography whose students cracked[3] all 9 proposed music "watermarking" systems of the SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) project and wanted to hold an paper on how the failled systems work, and was threatend by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) that he would be sued if he did so. He countersued them for treatening academic freedom of publishing research and then held the paper. [3] This was part of an offical "try to crack this" test by the SDMI team. They hoped that their "give us exclusively your results for $10000" bait would work. But professors prefer publishing over money. > > Thankfully I am not in the US, so I will be able to make and publish > > my program. But as consequence I will never be able to visit the US, > > else I get arrested there as criminal. This has happened to an russian > > who did this for eBook file formats (he wanted backups). > > I heard about that just last week. I was shocked. But in practice > no one will know what you did unless you advertise it by presenting > your work in a conference or something, as the Russian dude did. Problem is, I want others to be able to use my work (I have spent the time, so the world should make use of it), and improve on it (which may save me time doing those improvements). So I need to publish it. This applies both to the reverse engineered tool itsself and to the project I want to use the tool for (and am using the vendors tool for presently). > > [3] this software does not even enable copying DVDs, but it allows > > ignoring region codes. > > See my earlier comment. I just do not understand why regional > restrictions are so important to the industry. I get some of my > Tolkien books from amazon.uk, but I don't see Houghton Mifflin > going into the tank as a result. They could. Legally amazon.uk only is licensed to sell in the UK. Seems that the guys at HM are decent chaps. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: Andrew F Donnell Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 13:42:13 -0400 Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington Lines: 60 Message-ID: <3B911DF5.AD655709@indiana.edu> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: dial-123-58.dial.indiana.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.08 [en] (Win98; U) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.indiana.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50447 Neil Franklin wrote: > Ever wanted an DVD not published in your part of the world? Say an > Anime that only came out in Japan (or possible translated in the US, > but never out in Europe). Doesn't work. > > Ever wanted the full "directors cut" only available[1] in the US > edition (assuming you were outside the US)? Does not work. This is certainly a most troublesome turn of events in movie history (not *the* most, which would be Universal's almost successful attempt at butchering Terry Gilliam's _Brazil_ a decade or so ago). There are still solutions available though, for situations like these, one of which will be examined here. One could (theoretically) contact one's foreign buddy of questionable moral character and have him or her remove the movie from its DVD and place it on his or her harddrive in a format (as far as I know) not affected by region. From there it could be (theoretically again) transferred onto a CD and delievered through the postal service to the aforementioned DVD-deprived individual. There are weighty moral and ethical dilemmas associated with such an action, though, and I therefore deem it unsatisfactory as a long term solution to the region problem. Attention Big Brother: I am not now, nor have I ever been, an advocate of the use of illegal technology to steal DVDs from the swollen pocket of greedy corporate entities nor do I wish to incur the wrath of the user-unfriendly media industry. This idea was purely conjectural on my part and I claim no experiencial knowledge of said illegal technology. I was merely exercising my free-speach prerogative to delineate one possible solution to the above problem for the purpose of intellectual contemplation and evaluation, not for the purpose of exhorting anybody to violate copyright laws. Just felt like I should clarify this just in case it were to be read out of its proper context. > Not surprisingly a lot of people like me have decided to boycott the > media industry. It is our basic freedom to create that is at stake! It may perhaps be effective to boycott some of the less pervasive technologies--internet muscic, etc.--but things like DVDs are already too wildly popular for a minor boycott to have any effect, IMHO. There are enough profits rolling in from DVD that the media industry will not lose any sleep at night if there's a small percentage of the population boycotting them. DVD is just too good of a product with no real competition (laserdisc and VHS are essentially dead) to convince enough people to give it up in the small hope of getter an even better product. The only chance that such a boycott would have in drawing these people if it there were already a large number of people involved in the boycott so as to increase the odds of success. But you cannot get those large quantities of people because they will not join up unless there are already a large quantity of people involved. So this dooms any chance of boycott. Were there a competing product available that offered all the advantages of DVD without the disadvantage of regions, such a movement might have more success, since people would not have quite so much to give up to participate in the boycott. But there is no such product, and since DVD is already entrenched in the consumer mind, any competition, even if superior to DVD, does not have a large chance of success since people have already invested hundreds of dollars in DVD. Andy. ###### From: the_real_orius@hotmail.com (David Sulger) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 1 Sep 2001 12:21:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 15 Message-ID: <3ac4908.0109011121.486bd316@posting.google.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9mqk26$3iuba$1@ID-81911.news.dfncis.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.54.54.249 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 999372109 4447 127.0.0.1 (1 Sep 2001 19:21:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2001 19:21:49 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50515 "Morgil Blackhope" wrote in message news:<9mqk26$3iuba$1@ID-81911.news.dfncis.de>... > Neil Franklin kirjoitti viestissä <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>... > > >I hope I have described the problem sufficiently. If not, just post > >further questions. > > That was interesting. Thank you. > (I suppose there is no chance of hearing "the other side of the story"...) > Who wants to defend that? I can understand protecting copyrights, especially in a world where pirates do steal peoples' work and profit off it. But then when these protections start screwing the average person, then it becomes a problem. Not to mention that the companies can eventually start gouging the market once people can't start making their own copies. ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 22:06:52 -0400 Lines: 96 Message-ID: <3B919434.F9D88605@erols.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B911251.E2062BA9@erols.com> <6uk7zioev7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVYdNoC7V2Tbqxow6M0BOGUqGSgjeTZlx8JMRiinjcGC2btjYwN7kB5L X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Sep 2001 12:19:37 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!ams-newsfeed.speedport.net!newsfeed.speedport.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50551 Neil Franklin wrote: > Here where I am (Switzerland) those region-free players are also legal. > Just north in Germany they are not. But some Germans want them (not > surprisingly), leading to "gray imports". The German customs actually > try to stop such imports the same as they try to stop drug trafficing. > Same "sting" operations, arrests etc. Jeez Louise, that's scary. Imagine putting the profits of the movie industry on par with the drug problem. Any doubt that Big Business runs the entire Western world, regardless of which parties are thought to be in power? > Dito US-Region imported Disks were being sold in Germany (to those > with region-free players) until the shops selling them got sued by > the German arm of the movie industry. Well yes, I can see the German movie industry collapsing and all its employees selling pencils on the street if a few Germans buy American imports! Sheeesh. > > BTW, does anyone understand how restricting regional sales > > boosts profits? If I order a DVD from Sony Europe rather > > than waiting for Sony USA to come out with it, I'm still giving > > my money to Sony, am I not? So why did they go to all this > > trouble? > Of course recordable CD is better. But DAT and MD show the trend of > what the industry wants. > > And yes, they are working on schemes for making uncopyable CDs > (actually un-readable and unplayable on computer CD drives). > > Bad look if you have no dedicated CD player and listen to them with > your computer. Those aren't CD's at all, but rather some other format that plays on CD players. If they try to do that, I may get mad and start boycotting too. > Ever tried cutting DVDs and re-recording them? Will be technically > possible when DVD writer drives appear on computers. Just the DVD > encryption system will prevent you (unless you have Linux and use the > arrested Norwegians libdecss program :-)). The latter option sounds good, but I neither confirm nor deny my intentions. ;-) > Yes. That also scares me. That means there is no way to vote against > the DMCA supporters. It's the same as with Free Trade; we have no real option if we oppose it. The bottom line is that you don't get to vote against Big Business. > I just _hope_ the supreme court does not fail us > when the MPAA vs 2600[1] and the Felton[2] vs RIAA cases reach it. They may surprise you and us. It's happened before. > > I heard about that just last week. I was shocked. But in practice > > no one will know what you did unless you advertise it by presenting > > your work in a conference or something, as the Russian dude did. > > Problem is, I want others to be able to use my work (I have spent the > time, so the world should make use of it), and improve on it (which may > save me time doing those improvements). So I need to publish it. > > This applies both to the reverse engineered tool itsself and to the > project I want to use the tool for (and am using the vendors tool for > presently). Well, the US is going to have to do something other than just arresting anyone who has reverse engineered something abroad in violation of US law. If this Russian episode becomes a habit, technical conferences will stop meeting in the US. > > See my earlier comment. I just do not understand why regional > > restrictions are so important to the industry. I get some of my > > Tolkien books from amazon.uk, but I don't see Houghton Mifflin > > going into the tank as a result. > > They could. Legally amazon.uk only is licensed to sell in the > UK. Seems that the guys at HM are decent chaps. Are you saying that amazon.uk is breaking British law when they sell to the US? That boggles the mind. -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth. ###### From: Tamim Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 2 Sep 2001 12:40:07 GMT Organization: University of Helsinki Lines: 8 Message-ID: <9mt9b7$6gb$2@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B911251.E2062BA9@erols.com> <6uk7zioev7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B919434.F9D88605@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: kruuna.helsinki.fi X-Trace: oravannahka.helsinki.fi 999434407 6667 128.214.205.14 (2 Sep 2001 12:40:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.helsinki.fi NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Sep 2001 12:40:07 GMT User-Agent: tin/1.4.2-20000205 ("Possession") (UNIX) (SunOS/5.8 (sun4u)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!194.213.69.151!news.algonet.se!newsfeed1.telenordia.se!algonet!newsfeed1.funet.fi!newsfeeds.funet.fi!news.helsinki.fi!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50504 Flame of the West wrote: snip > It's the same as with Free Trade; we have no real option if we > oppose it. The bottom line is that you don't get to vote > against Big Business. You can: by giving your vote to the commies ;) ###### From: Paul S. Person Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 10:16:30 -0700 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Lines: 92 Message-ID: References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9mqk26$3iuba$1@ID-81911.news.dfncis.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: a5.79.21.b2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Server-Date: 2 Sep 2001 17:09:01 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/32.534 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50445 "Morgil Blackhope" wrote: > >Neil Franklin kirjoitti viestissä <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>... > >>> I just >>> don't see why it's so important that you'd boycott the entire technology. >> >>I hope I have described the problem sufficiently. If not, just post >>further questions. > >That was interesting. Thank you. >(I suppose there is no chance of hearing "the other side of the story"...) You could always ask the MPAA and other industry groups. It might be helpful to consider book publishing: what keeps my local book store (in the USA) from offering both A&W (or whatever they have become) and HM editions of JRRT's works? Ultimately, I suspect, it is a matter of rights: HM owns the rights to publish JRRT in the USA and, presumably, the distributors honor these rights (possibly through fear of legal sanctions if they do not, quite likely by contract, almost certainly by custom and tradition). But (barring confiscation by Customs or unwillingness of the vendor to ship it to the USA) nothing prevents me from purchasing an A&W edition or even going to Canada and picking up the edition sold there. And it would be fully useable in the USA: books don't have region codes. Doing this might (or might not) be illegal, I have no idea. It certainly would violate HM's rights, since HM would get nothing from the sale even though I live in the USA. Suppose I write a book and want to get it published. If I can't convince a publisher to publish it, what are my options? I could purchase a photocopy machine (home photocopy machines exist), but that isn't really going to do it: what about binding? Photocopy shops can do some binding (I don't know if they can actually produce a hard-bound book), but, if I really want the book published, I can always find a "vanity publisher", who will produce the book in any quantity so long as I am willing to pay. Purchasing the equipment needed to do it myself would likely be very expensive, and possibly violate the local zoning ordinances, unless home versions of this equipment exists. And a note on rights: when I purchase, for example, /The Hobbit/, I own the physical object, the book, which contains the text. I do not acquire the right to reproduce it (not even as a backup) or to distribute copies of it further. In a sense, I have "licensed" the text, just as I "license" a computer program although I may "own" the disk it came on. So, the only legitimate argument I can imagine presupposes that world-wide rights for, eg, putting out a film on video have not been purchased and so the tape and/or DVD of that particular film by that particular publisher cannot legally be distributed outside of a specified area. In other words, it could be argued that region-free players prevent authors from controlling (and so being paid for) the distribution of their own works. Of course, in that case, a naive observer, such as myself, would expect every nation on the planet to be its own region, since otherwise the necessary control would not be possible. I cannot think of any legitimate argument for restricting the ability to originate music or even video and distribute it at home -- although requiring the budding artist to purchase "home versions" of the equipment that can do this (as opposed to "consumer devices") may be defensible. Then again, "vanity publishers" for music and/or video, if they do not exist now, undoubtedly will exist in the future. I think there are two problematic areas here: a) individual users appear to believe that they have the inalienable right to make and distribute copies of anything they can get their hands on, especially anything that can be copied as easily as music; b) the industry is over-reacting and adopting a position that will not work in the long run, in part because it will irritate an awful lot of ordinary citizens. On point a), this is fine for works originated by the individual user, but not so fine for works to which the individual user does not possess the rights. Unfortunately, there is an awful lot of piracy going on, both computer software, digitized music, and cassette tapes. On point b), I have seen news items on the EU (I can only hope I got the acronym for the correct organization) revving up to fine the USA $4B US because of certain tax advantages given to really large corporations, such as Boeing and Microsoft, on their overseas (non-USA) income -- but not to all USA corporations because of the way it is done (something about having to maintain a subsidiary off-shore, which a smaller business may not be able to afford). I believe the EU (or whatever) explicitly allows reverse engineering in some cases, and this is likely to eventually curb at least some of the excesses of USA law. ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: 04 Sep 2001 22:58:17 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 90 Message-ID: <6ur8tmvfkm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B911251.E2062BA9@erols.com> <6uk7zioev7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B919434.F9D88605@erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 999637098 625 10.0.3.2 (4 Sep 2001 20:58:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 4 Sep 2001 20:58:18 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50727 Sorry the late answer. My computer decided that a 80% full hard disk equals no space left and would not download any more :-(. Flame of the West writes: > Neil Franklin wrote: > > > surprisingly), leading to "gray imports". The German customs actually > > try to stop such imports the same as they try to stop drug trafficing. > > Same "sting" operations, arrests etc. > > Jeez Louise, that's scary. Imagine putting the profits of the > movie industry on par with the drug problem. There have been quite a few comparisons drug war vs "copyright war" (as it is starting to be called). > > Yes. That also scares me. That means there is no way to vote against > > the DMCA supporters. > > It's the same as with Free Trade; we have no real option if we > oppose it. The bottom line is that you don't get to vote > against Big Business. Unless we are enough of us and can make an effective boykott and hit their cashflow. (And I have to admit that the case for DVD seems to be ineffective. Maybe will have to reconsider :-).) > > I just _hope_ the supreme court does not fail us > > when the MPAA vs 2600[1] and the Felton[2] vs RIAA cases reach it. > > They may surprise you and us. It's happened before. We can only hope. The word "hope" as in the hope of desperate ones, grabbing the last straw. > > > I heard about that just last week. I was shocked. But in practice > > > no one will know what you did unless you advertise it by presenting > > > your work in a conference or something, as the Russian dude did. > > Well, the US is going to have to do something other than just > arresting anyone who has reverse engineered something > abroad in violation of US law. If this Russian episode becomes > a habit, technical conferences will stop meeting in the US. Newsflash: A few days ago the Russion government issued an official danger warning that computer personnel should avoid visiting the US. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/ecp-01.09.01-002/ (in German) Moskau warnt Computer-Experten vor USA-Reisen That is how far we have come in the last 15 years: 15 years ago: Sovietunion, cold war, anti arms race demonstrations 10 years ago: Sovietunion collapses, US congrats Russians 5 years ago: US policy is taken over by publishers today: Russian republic warns that traveling to the US is dangerous Complete reversal in 15 years. Who would have thought of that? This is a totally crazy world. > > > See my earlier comment. I just do not understand why regional > > > restrictions are so important to the industry. I get some of my > > > Tolkien books from amazon.uk, but I don't see Houghton Mifflin > > > going into the tank as a result. > > > > They could. Legally amazon.uk only is licensed to sell in the > > UK. Seems that the guys at HM are decent chaps. > > Are you saying that amazon.uk is breaking British law when > they sell to the US? That boggles the mind. I suspect they are violating contract. Harper Collins and Houghton Mifflin definitely have regionally exclusive publishing licenses for GB (or Europe?) and USA (this has been written in multiple posts here). Amazon UK as a bookseller in GB most likely has some contract with HC. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: Flame of the West Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: OT: US dvd region problems Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 22:43:16 -0400 Lines: 18 Message-ID: <3B959140.C7BAD215@erols.com> References: <6uheuzlqq3.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <13025-3B89C019-336@storefull-256.iap.bryant.webtv.net> <6upu9f7wfm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8C334F.883729A6@erols.com> <6ur8tulh8w.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B8D7FF6.862F818C@erols.com> <6ur8trss5v.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B911251.E2062BA9@erols.com> <6uk7zioev7.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3B919434.F9D88605@erols.com> <6ur8tmvfkm.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: jsolinas@erols.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVa5l5fyufueBQXjVGXZgJF9x1xbo21dCBDhD/nJ00smrhC8XYSKb/L2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 5 Sep 2001 04:55:49 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:50846 Neil Franklin wrote: > Newsflash: A few days ago the Russion government issued an official > danger warning that computer personnel should avoid visiting the US. > Complete reversal in 15 years. Who would have thought of that? This is > a totally crazy world. I'll say! It's come to this - incredible! :-0 -- -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-Earth.