DVD Region Encoding, Piracy, Solutions...

This came as a surprise to me. Apparently the main purpose behind DVD region-encoding is to curb piracy! I always thought that it was just to irritate consumers.

Disclaimer: I neither condone nor condemn piracy. This is a mere rant.

Most people who use DVDs have probably experienced the annoyance of region encoding. Simply put, region encoding is a mechanism built in to original DVD movies (and video games) that disables you from playing DVDs from one region in a player belonging to another region. For more on regional encoding, click here.

Unfortunately the forces that be are most probably going to extend this tremendously stupid practice to the next generation, though in the case of Blu-Ray discs the number of regions would be reduced.

The reason I call this tremendously stupid is in relation to the fact that pirated discs are what is called 'region-free' - i.e. they don't have this locking mechanism. So in essence, pirated discs are more consumer friendly than original discs! Couple that with the fact that you can get pirated discs for a fraction of the cost of an original DVD movie, and you have marketing suicide.

The only reasons that DVDs sell are that people don't know of the pirated options, and/or don't want to bother with visiting seedy shops. In a few cases, people might even have an ethical objection to piracy. That would be fairly remote though.

So how can they fight piracy?

A better business model - There is no way that the movie industry et al will win this war in the courts. No. way. There are too many people involved in copyright violations and piracy, and moreover, most of them operate beyond the jurisdiction of American courts. The 'war' cannot be won by technological means either. The very nature of hackers is that they thrive on intellectual stimulation. Companies adopting more complex and tougher copy protection mechanisms only translates to offering a greater challenge to pirates (not to mention, also increasing their profit potential!) The only way piracy can be beat in long term is by giving better value for money, i.e. an improved mix of price and quality.

Price :
The irony in region encoding is that it could have been best used to enable companies to utilize price discrimination, i.e. they could have charged different costs for their movies in different countries. e.g. an original ps2 game in India costs over Rs. 2,000. A pirated ps2 game Costs Rs. 50. An average college graduate in an area like New Delhi can hope to earn between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 15,000 at his first job. Which option do you think he / she would go for? In my very unscientific but empirically sound judgment, I find the difference in cost of living translates such that an average persons spending $40 in the U.S. is about the same as an average person spending Rs. 400 in India. Thus, perhaps a more appropriate price for original ps2 games would be around Rs. 500.

Furthermore, by changing the method of distribution from physical DVDs sold in brick-and-mortar stores, if the industries focus more on distributing via the internet (and concurrently investing in ISPs to increase speed and connectivity), they will find themselves with a bigger profit margin, part of which can be passed on to the consumer in terms of lower prices.

Quality :
The biggest flaw with the DVD and other optical disc media is durability. A few scratches on your disc, and you can no longer enjoy your movie / video games / music. This is one area where original media beats pirated media, but only slightly. Pirated discs are typically of low quality but given the way the average person uses them (short term not long term) this is usually insignificant. Moreover, the price difference is such that you can buy and replace your pirated discs several times over for the cost of one original disc. However, notably, most people when they buy something like it to work without any issue or hassle, and this is one of the few reasons why someone would opt for original content over pirated content.

The appropriate measure to take here would be the introduction of schemes whereby consumers would be able to replace their scratched discs at a nominal cost instead of having to buy the disc again. (But of course, the best solution would be to move to a more durable format).

Conclusion : Legal and technological options alone will not end piracy, but would only make piracy more profitable. What the industries need to do is to look at their very own foundation of capitalism - the 'war' has to be fought in the market. Ironically, the very ideology that started modern industry has now in this case come to bite them back in the ass. Compete or be extinct.