> Unless Australian retailers change their tactics, they will slowly go out of business, because an entire generation of computer literate people realize you can get 2-3x more out of your money just by buying from online stores.
Buying online from overseas only works until the government put in place laws to prevent circumvention of technical rights protection measures. Like the DMCA in the US, or " European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of May 22, 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society." in EU.
That means that turning your DVD into a region free player is illegal; chipping a console so it can play region locked games is illegal; etc.
Australian law explicitly allows for consumers to circumvent region locking. Of course, this doesn't mean this can't change, but at least there's explicit precedent allowing it.
Quote from the Attorney General's department:
βAn access control TPM specifically excludes TPMs which control geographic market segmentation. This means that consumers will be able to circumvent the region coding TPMs on legitimate DVDs purchased overseas. It also allows for the continued availability of region-free DVD players.β
TPM is a term from the US/Australian Free-Trade Agreement.
Buying online from overseas only works until the government put in place laws to prevent circumvention of technical rights protection measures. Like the DMCA in the US, or " European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of May 22, 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society." in EU.
That means that turning your DVD into a region free player is illegal; chipping a console so it can play region locked games is illegal; etc.
It feels like a big scam.