I have read the news reports about your inquiry into whether DVD region encoding violates the Trade Practices Act, and would like to voice my opinion on the matter. I believe it does have an adverse effect on consumer choice of DVD titles in Australia.

Of the fraction of DVD titles that are available in Region 4, most of them are recent or mass-market titles, of the sort that can be guaranteed to sell in large quantities. However, many less popular titles, expecially non-mainstream titles appealing to niche audiences, are not made available in Region 4, presumably because the studios don't see enough of an audience throughout the region to justify the costs. (This includes many foreign-language, independent and art-house films; examples include _The City Of Lost Children_ (marketed by Sony in the U.S.) and _Brazil_ (from Universal).) These are predominantly older titles, which are not screening in cinemas, and as such the studios' argument that region coding is used solely to protect box-office revenues rings false.

As such, I would argue that region coding not only restricts consumer choice and artificially keeps prices high, but also results in a homogenised, mainstream selection, restricted only to titles with enough mass-market appeal to justify release in such a small region. This is not only economically unfair, but it is culturally harmful as well.

It is in the interests of Australian consumers that they have access to titles from other regions, and to players capable of playing these titles.

Sincerely,

Andrew C. Bulhak