How Does Region Locking Work?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
1,004 words · ~5 min read
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with the world becoming smaller it's pretty easy to find a foreign film
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sporting event or breaking news story that you're interested in from abroad
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but then when you go to tune in or watch that Blu-ray you ordered from Hong Kong
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bam you're hit with an error saying you can't watch hardboiled with chow Yun fat
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in your region well what gives with that
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region locking has been a fact of life for a while but has become especially
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frustrating since DVDs Rose to pop popularity in the late 1990s and the way
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it's worked since then is pretty much like this when you go to buy a movie or
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a TV show you might see a little globe on the back with a number from 1 through
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7 for DVDs or a letter from a through c
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for blu-ray discs these refer to the region of the world the dis is intended
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to be used in but why would that matter
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well you see DVD and Blu-ray players
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sold in a specific region are locked on
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a firmware level to whichever region they are sold in which like the disc you
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can usually see by checking on the back of the player so if you're in the US
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with a region one player and you order a DVD from Hong Kong like our example
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before which is in Region Three assuming that you didn't buy a region free disc
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on the black market you are going to be out of luck though fun fact some
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computer Optical drives allow you to change the region but after you've done
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it a few times these drives also become region locked in the firmware but come
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on lus that's Stone Age Technology I
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stream everything online well even so
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you've probably encountered region locking anyway especially if you're
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trying to do something like watch European soccer in North America or
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access the US Netflix library from Canada in cases like these the website
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you're trying to access will determine your location by looking at your IP
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address and block it if you're in an IP range that they know belongs to a
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different country and although many enterprising movie lovers and sports
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fans have gotten around this using VPN services that route data traffic through
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a different location which you can learn more about here this isn't a foolproof
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solution since some content providers block IP ranges that they suspect belong
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to commercial VPN Services as well okay then lonus why do the powers that be
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bother with all of this if I pay for something why can I just watch it don't
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they want my money well it used to be that
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technological compatibility was a big part of the rationale for region locking
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when DVDs started becoming widespread many TVs were still predominantly using
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analog inputs and different parts of the world used incompatible standards for
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analog TV with ntsc popular in the
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Americas Korea and Japan and pal and ccam dominant in most most of the rest
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of the world this is actually why cartridges for older game systems like
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the SNES and Sega Genesis wouldn't work with versions of the console purchased
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from different countries although there were workarounds but back to the bit
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about creators in the modern day wanting your money well someone definitely does
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but who has the right to collect it you
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see creators want to be able to control
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how their content is distributed so they can make royalties off of it and since
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there isn't a worldwide emperor of copyright Lord of distribution it often
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Falls to smaller third-party distributors in individual countries who
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are contracted to take a cut for handling marketing and localization for
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the content and to pass along some
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pre-negotiated royalties to the original
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Creator so with modern digital standards
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allowing quick distribution of nearly anything to the entire world I still
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expect region locking to be around for quite a while as copyright holders try
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to keep their content from floating about freely in every corner of
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cyberspace and I wish them luck with that speaking of luck if you were
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wondering to yourself gee if only there was an online platform where I could get
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listen to them on my mobile device if I'm you know bored at work and I have a
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then you're in luck because audible.com exists yes my friends it
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down and stare at a book from not knowing what happens in really John how
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to make Friends and Influence People by Dale carnegi because I'm lonely and my
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employees never listen to me that's what
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John put in there well audible.com has
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How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale carnegi but they also have lots
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of other stuff too like fiction and periodicals and wow now I feel now I
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feel really sad what a mean thing to say anyway you can get your free audiobook
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with a 30-day free trial to their audiobook membership at audible.com
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tequi by checking out the link in the video description so thanks for watching
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guys if you like this video like it if you disliked it dislike like it if you want to check out other channels boom if
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you want to leave a comment with suggestions for future fastest posses
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down there John will be checking those out and also down there is the Subscribe
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button you should definitely click on that so you don't miss any more videos
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