I heard about this on the radio. My first thought was "...and they say Obama is technologically astute". But, obviously no one thought about this before hand. So I can't completely fault Obama. It is part and parcel of the massive level of ignorance that free flows throughout the land when it comes to technology.

Maybe someone should show him how to turn his DVD player to Region Free player??

read about this last week, kind of sad... not really, well deserved gift i figure

That's just to funny, perhaps Prime Minister Spencer of Antigua will give Mr. Brown a copy of AnyDVD.

I can't believe the President of the country which bestowed the beloved DMCA upon its citizens would FU@* up that bad.

Regionalization of DVDs was and remains a stone cold ripoff by the entertainment companies. How else can they gouge additional money for features shipped with one distro and not another - at a premium, no less.

Here's hoping a definitive slap gets delivered.

Could have been worse, the DVD's could have been pirated!
Now that would have been embarrassing.

The funny part is....pirated DVD's likely would have worked.

since I am the new kid on the block and still trying to figure out the "rules' here ( from the posts, I can only conclude the only rule is that there are no stinkin rules)While DRMs (region coding of DVDs) is a tech issue, I don't think this is all that important in the large scheme of things (even in the tech field. I will say that saying that this president is tech savvy just because he text messages is like saying Bush could put two coherent sentences together. Given the toxic waste dump we call our capitol, I don't think this is really an issue.

having said that, Has Obama copyrighted the phrase "The Anointed One" yet because I am filing an application to copyright it since my cat anointed me while I was in bed and didn't get up to feed her. I even had the pope bless the urine (Ok..it wasn't the pope but a drag king dressed as the pope down here in New Orleans for Mardi Gras).

finally Ms. Gunn? out of all the writers that I have read at betanews, I like your style the best. Even a non-issue and boring issue as this, you made it fun to read. Thank you :)

Embarrassing? For Sure! Insulting? I think not. No other nation embraced cinema like the US. It is a huge part of our culture so a gift of 25 truly classic movies would of been nice... it just would have been nicer if our savvy new administration had ever heard about the freakin' Region Codes! D'OH!

Mr. President, I hope this is a wake up call for your administration! You people are passing and supporting laws that you don't even understand! DRM is a nuisance to consumers... nothing more. Now that it's become a nuisance to you... maybe you'll do something about it?

@skua

No other nation embraced cinema like US???...Have you heard of India...it produces roughly 4 times more movies than US and no DRM. Get your head out of the hole called "World is US" and look around.

Maybe the dvd collection was a gift from China for Obama and he just re-gifted them to the PM.

The PM can always re-gift them to the Dali-Lama at the next world peace conference.

How friggin embarrassing. Maybe they should have given a gift certificate to walmart.

see now this was at least clever. all the rest of you should take note.

HOW DARE ANY OF YOU MAKE FUN OF THE ANOINTED ONE!!! ;)

lol! I think I love you, lady.

This was a really dumb thing to do on his part. This is two week old news, however.

So much for the new technical savy administration...

LMAO!

"Change"...indeed.

you forgot to call him a terrorist.

What a dumb gift.

Makes me cringe just thinking about it.

Probably one of those discount DVD sets too.

If Bush had insulted an ally this way the press would've talked about nothing else for weeks. Obama can commit any offense or crime he likes and the mainstream American media is silent. Even those who support him can't deny this. The myth of the free press is finally dead and buried - we know who gives NBC and the rest of them their talking points. Anyone who isn't chilled by this is either a facsist or a fool.

are we still talking about 25 dvds or have you gone off on a crazy tangent on a tech blog?

He should do a web search of "dvd region codes"

from the computer he doesn't have in his office?

Region free DVD players exits, however I can't imagine the PM has an NTSC capable player.

Paul,

Nearly all players in most countries I've been to are compatible with the various flavours of NTSC and PAL. The restricting factor is usually the TVs: basic models aren't usually multi-standard.

I have no idea what the situation is in the US.

you would think that as technical as Obama claims to be along with his staff, they would catch something like that. so much for `yes we can..' more like no you can't morons..

you also forgot to call him a terrorist.

el oh el at you poking fun at still bitter voters

DRM, Region Codes, all part of the industry's efforts to make it so that average Joe can't become a pirating mogul. Of course, I don't think average Joe wants to be a pirating mogul, and those that do can get around these and anything else likely to be thrown at them.

I've personally found it very annoying that we can't send DVDs or video games as gifts to relatives in Europe. It is all very silly and self-defeating.

Preach, brother. Meanwhile, you can walk into respectable storefronts in certain parts of the world and get any DVD you want for about $1.50 -- often on the same day the movie hits the theaters. Region 0, too. Makes a person want to fly to foreign lands with a ripper and a case of thumbdrives, it really does.

I've always wanted to know how does region coding prevent piracy?

Cairobeta, it really doesn't. It's a nuisance, and because it's a circumventable nuisance for anyone willing to make the effort, it's helpfully criminalizing people who just what to play their lawfully obtained disks. Lock-in is a pitiful excuse for a security strategy when everyone in the world has easy access to lockpicking tools.

Region codes are for price differentiation between consumers in different regions. For example, consumers in Asia might only make $200/month in wages and you can't possibly expect them to pay $20 for a DVD, so they're given $1.50 DVDs which are better quality than the $1 pirated DVDs. But you can't have those $1.50 DVDs available in a country like the U.S. because it will kill sales of $20 DVDs.

Now if you're going to try and tell me that we should be getting DVDs for $1.50 in this country, then explain to me why not $0.50 or $0.25.

Correct DVD pricing? Actually, I like Lala.com's ownership model (for music, in their case) -- here's the price if you mean to only stream it, here's another, slightly higher price if you want to burn it to a disc (or put it on a player). I'm not sure that debating price points is as productive yet as simply figuring out a model that works for all parties.

Yeah, everybody keeps going on and on about how horrible Bush was and how much he hurt the US's relations with other countries, but so far Obama hasn't really improved on that record.

Anyway, what does DRM have to do with DVD region codes?

Hi BourgeoisDude. A region code is a form of digital rights management -- to break it down to its simplest iteration, it manages (read: limits) your ability to watch DVDs purchased in one area of the world on machines purchased in another.

It was conceived of originally as a pricing and scheduling restraint -- allowing, say, the price for a certain movie to be set lower in Southeast Asia (where demand might be lower or the price pressure might be higher) to be set much lower than they are in America (where most of us are pretty comfortable paying $15 or more for a DVD). Or say you had a TV show like Doctor Who, which airs far earlier in the UK than it does in the US. Release it for Region 2 when you want the Brits to have it, and many fans in the US will still have to wait 'til it airs in the States. (Yes, okay, Who fans are pretty smart about getting about such things, but that's a DMCA violation. We will say no more.)

It's protecting, in other words, a business model that most of us would characterize as 'busted.' And the other consequences, of which this situation is one, further illustrate how digital controls harm consumers who have broken no law beyond "thou shalt not have overseas friends buy you things." I always feel sorry for people who love foreign films and have to wrestle with this region nonsense on a regular basis; the Obama / Brown example is mainly just funny, but with a little bit of luck it could also be as usefulto the discussion as when the families of certain Congresscritters and FCC folk finally tried the iPod and understood why ordinary citizens would want their MP3.

"but that's a DMCA violation."
Really?
How come so many DVD players come "region free"?

Speak for your own shopping experience, Paul -- Region 0 isn't nearly as common as it ought to be around here. (It OUGHT to be the standard, but I mean in proportion to other players on the market at your average store.) And yeah, I used to have one -- fell off the back of a truck at Kim's Video back in NYC, complete with the disk I needed to reset it to Region 0. I miss that thing; disappeared several moves back.

In most of Asia all the DVD players are region free. Last time I was in the UK region free players were available from shops for a small extra charge.

for PCs any DVD-ROM can be unlocked to region 0 with almost no effort at all. and by any DVD-ROM and i mean all DVD-ROMs ever made. maybe you could then rip the DVD and burn it for any region you wish?

nuisance for sure and just like music and video game DRM and gun control laws, it only hurts legitimate owners.

As for Obama...he HUGELY insulted our biggest ally twice inside of 2 months...what an accomplishment! 1st he sends back a statue of Winston Churchill that the people of England gave the PEOPLE of America (it wasnt rightfully Obama's to give back, anyhow) and then he gives Brown 25 classic DVDs???? wtf? Gordon Brown gave Obama/The Presidency a pen made from the wood of a 1800s British ship that was one of the biggest unifying symbols between our 2 countries.

the ship was frozen in the arctic or something in the mid or late 1800s and the crew was lost. when the ice melted in the spring, we found the vessel and towed it to England and handed it over as one of our 1st gifts of friendship. a past British PM or monarch had 2 desks made out of the wood of the ship. one for them and the other was a gift for our President, which supposedly is still in use today in one White House room or another.

So Brown gives us a huge symbol of friendship in the pen made from this vessel while Obama gives him "25 classic" DVDs that wont even play? are the freaking kidding me?

The world hates the Bush administration for pushing it into assaulting sovereign countries based on falsified information.

The world is slightly amused by the Obama administration for giving region encoded DVDs to an international guest. How many consumers *know* region coding exists? I'd rather have the president focus on other problems such as those cars and houses you idiots bought without a penny to pay for it.

If he or more likely his people can't figure out that the DVD's won't work (what kind of gift is that) then what makes you think he's capable of handling all those other problems.

@bourgeoisdude: my god. you gave bush eight years and you've given obama two months. now who exactly has bought into the idea that obama is some magical unicorn that was crapped from a leprechaun put forth on this earth by none other than JC?

i can't believe you'd even compare sending dvds to steam rolling a country.

@lvthunder: i'm glad that morons like you don't make up the majority of this country anymore. i'd hate to think that i lived in a place where the majority of people thought that failure to realize dvd region codes meant that you were bound to commit horrible atrocities like flattening a foreign country.

@Somnambulator: why don't you ask Gordon how he feels about it? I'm pretty sure you and two other people screaming NOBAMA and "he's a muslin ... keel him" are the only ones that give a crap.

have you done ANY research on this topic? the Brits are f'ing PISSSSSSED. they feel betrayed and ignored. Brown came over here to push his hugely liberal idea of a sort of globalized government/currency, which Obama supports, but Obama just laughed in his face and insulted the entire British nation. I thought this was supposed to be a new era where we restore the respect and admiration of the U.S. to other countries...so insulting our greatest ally in our history and intentionally tanking global markets (because most of them are based on the USD) is restoring the glory of the US? right...