Video Asylum

Posted by David Aiken (A) on January 22, 2007 at 16:57:13

In Reply to: studio decision posted by Joe Murphy Jr on January 22, 2007 at 14:00:05:

Well, all of that sounds a lot more reasonable than the situation with normal DVDs where the zone system genuinely works against the customer.

I bought a copy of Tarkovsky's "Solaris" on a local, zone 4 DVD late last year when it was finally released here. It was the first local DVD release of the film and that release could hardly impact on the film release since I saw the film on it's release here in Australia around 30 years ago, and a few times after that. In the US there were at least 2 releases of the film available yet here there were none. If the zone system really did anything to protect the interests of the copyright holder in such cases, I could find some reason to support it, but it isn't protecting the interests of the copyright holder in such cases. It works against them by limiting sales. A totally hopeless situation for the prospective customer and a stupid one for the copyright holder.

Making things difficult for the prospective customer can rarely, if ever, be a sensible decision and I don't t hink it's a sensible one here.

David Aiken