OT: excellent book on information theory

[Terry Hancock]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 07:55:50 +0000
Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> wrote:

> Alex Martelli wrote:
> > Terry Hancock <hancock at anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
> >    ...
> > 
> >>due to the Evil Conspiracy of region-coding, I couldn't
> >>watch the British DVD even if I were to import it (Well,
> >>yeah I could, but it would be painful, and probably
> >illegal,
> > 
> > 
> > I have a region-free DVD player here in CA --
> > considering that I brought with me a hundred or more
> > DVDs from the old country, and I get as many more here
> > in shops or via netflix, I really couldn't do without. 
> > I legally ordered it on the web and it was legally
> > delivered.  What's illegal about it?!
> > 
> Nothing at all. But I still prefer tales of people who
> have hacked their  DVD players to be multi-region :-)

It isn't illegal in Canada anyway.  And yes, it would be
possible for me to pay a very high price to get a
region-free player in the USA, but I'm certainly not going
to. 

IMHO, region coding is an immoral abuse of the economy
-- the corporation that produces the video benefits from
cost-savings resulting from the globalization of the labor
market, but then uses cryptography to prevent the consumer
from benefitting from the same globalization.

If it were just a matter of breaking cryptography, though,
that wouldn't be such a big deal: they write it, we break
it. Tough cookies.

But the US has made that illegal -- even when it is a
practical necessity to exercise fair use rights on
legally-purchased media.  I am disgusted by that.

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com