h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

2600.com is in a lawsuit. They are recieving help from the Electronic Frontier's Foundation. A trial date has been set for early december. More details on this trial can be found at 2600.com

I don't know much about the other trial, or what is going on with it.

It seems to me that the regional coding and CSS mechanisms of DVD ought to be illegal according to the WTO, because they constitute an artificial barrier to the import and export of DVDs. If requiring that genetically modified food be labelled is an unfair barrier to free trade, surely requiring that DVDs be flagged as region 1 is an even bigger barrier?

I know that Tesco supermarket in the UK has started a battle against region coding, but I'm not sure whether they are actually trying to get their case held in front of the WTO. It would be extremely amusing if the WTO rules, which after all were set up by corporations to make the world safe for them to plunder, turned out to make region coding illegal.

This is almost striking me as utterly hilarious: as soon as a set of laws are drafted to protect someone's copyright, the very versatile technology that's causing the need for the copyright changes becomes the problem because the material is all digital and transmittable anywhere....

ASIDE; Somewhere in that article was the mention of recording a CD-ROM off a VHS tape. I get the point, although anyone mad enough to do that would end up with an unsaleable product; the resolution off a VHS tape is going to be pathetic next to a digital copy. Going the other way I could see that as a problem.

I suppose the best thing to do now is sit back and watch the ride...

Fruitbat