DVD Zoning Enforced In Law 222
hysterion writes: "A recent bill from the French government makes the headlines of the major daily paper Libération. (Translation here.) Currently, French law prohibits DVD sales of any movie during its first 9 months in theatres. While reducing this to 6 months,
the bill aims to kill a thriving import market by now including
foreign issues -- even if they are not dubbed or subtitled in
French. In effect, starting January 1, "any
importation of zone 1 DVD or VHS of movies which have obtained
a visa of exploitation in French theatres is prohibited."
Can they really hope to enforce this? Or will movies eventually
have to come out simultaneously in all parts of the world? (Irony: the Secretary of Culture who wrote this bill is also on record speaking against
software patents.)" Apparently the law will ban any Zone 1 DVD permanently if the French distributors have, or plan to, show the same movie in French theaters (and presumably release it on Zone 2 DVD some time after that).
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:1)
what next, australian wine banned ? (Score:1)
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:1)
Whilst in France many foreigners living here are helped in their own languages.
You just hate us French for trying to protect our values but you do the same in your own country. Anglosaxon values must be adopted by everyone and any immigrant who tries to hold his own values is shunned.
Everybody has to become a wanabe American in your view.
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:1)
In a way, that sounds like throwing out people from bars if they don't get drunk in a hour. (In which case, they don't care either..)
Re:Isn't this against EU rules? (Score:1)
That said it is still an incredibly stupid law even by French standards. Are they intending to check every package imorted from abroad to see if it is a DVD and if so check what region it is? Of course not. This law is unenforcable and dumb. I had better not say any more about French law before the francophile set come out and censor me.
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:1)
Vermifax
What DVDs?? (Score:1)
Considering the relative strength of the French movie industry (compared to other European countries), you might expect to be able to get at least some "big name" french movies on DVD.
On the actual topic: I thought that EC law didn't allow 'selective import' within the Community? Isn't this why the whole of Europe is one region in the first place? Doesn't that apply in reverse in this situuation?
Re:What DVDs?? (Score:1)
Re:Stupid, uninforcable (Score:1)
Re:Stupid, uninforcable (Score:1)
Re:Dumb Canadians. (Score:1)
Re:But there *IS* a piece of France proper in N. A (Score:1)
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:1)
"Le D'oh!"
- -Josh Turiel
The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:1)
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:1)
Re:French Dubs (Score:1)
Re:I disagree (Score:1)
Re:Isn't this against EU rules? (Score:1)
Nobody has yet managed to explain, to my satisfaction, what this (both DVD zoning and Sat. TV.) has to with copyright anyway. In both cases the producer/copyright owner is paid for the 'copy' (DVD or TV Viewing) so why is it anything to do with copyright where that (paid for) copy is enjoyed? Part of the DVD retail price and the Satellite TV subscription fee goes to the copyright owner. So why should the copyright owner be allowed to decree that the DVD can only be played and the Sat. TV broadcast only watched in certain countries? If I buy a book at the airport in one country, when I arrive at my destination I am not told that I am no longer allowed to read the copy I brought with me but have to buy a copy locally and read that. So why should DVDs and Sat TV broadcasts be any different?
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:1)
Re:The US also makes imports illegal (Score:1)
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:1)
Re:I disagree (Score:1)
Things like DMCA, that makes illegal "circumventing digital protection methods" even when you have all the rights to see/use the content (since you paid for it) are still drafts at best, and with little chances to become effective.
Ciao,
Roberto.
LOBBIES (Score:1)
You've just discovered that lobbies (in this case, the lobby of movie theaters) may make the government take decisions that piss off a lot of people. Congratulations.
Re:huh? (Score:1)
Nope. On
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:1)
Everybody has to become a wanabe American in your view.
Well said! There should be an international anti-USian culture organisation. I would join it immediately. It disgusts me to see so many of my countrymen (I am British) exhibiting the sentiment that they dream that they were born USian. If they like the idea so much, they should just go there are do that, not try to destroy the culture of the country of their birth. The most recent example would be those moronic Budweiser adverts. You only have to step outside your front door to hear some idiot screaming... no I can't bring myself to type it actually.
Hell, Disney wants to bad Region 1 discs too (Score:1)
Alliance/Atlantis was producing DVDs from Disney studios like Touchstone with better features than the US counterpart (French dubbing, bien sûr), but also with 16x9 enhanced versions that were NOT available in the USA! Figure that one out...
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
heh... (Score:2)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
Can we do a similear move? (Score:2)
Can those of us in the US write our congressmen and have them make it illegal to sell a DVD player in the US that is limited to what zones it can play. Seems like a perfect way to do an end run around all those restrictions. I'm sure smart people on /. can come up with several freedoms that the corporate world is limited unnessicarly with region codes.
Re:The /. Article is misleading (Score:2)
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
France has a president.
Canada has a prime sinister.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
Re:Stupid, uninforcable (Score:2)
Indeed - I'd recommend DVD Box Office [dvdboxoffice.com] in Canada who do the same thing (separate jiffybags), and also free postage worldwide. They are the reason that most of my DVDs are region 1 - I can save roughly 5 pounds per disc buying from Canada, not to mention getting releases a lot sooner (Ferris Bueller, 6 months), and intact (Fight Club).
Re:Stupid, uninforcable (Score:2)
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
"Germanic harshness"? I think of English as a very versatile language. I would also argue that "harshness" depends on the voice of the individual speaker. I live in the Acadian peninsula of New Brunswick, Canada, so I know all about conficts between French and English.
And don't give me that nonsense about non-France French not being true French, it's French. I don't regard non-England English as not being true English. They're all just dialects.
The French helps maintain monopolies (Score:2)
Obiwan Kenobi points out that this sort of law is necessary because films are released at different times.
Movies are released at different times in different zones for business reasons. That's it. If the motion picture companies wanted to release movies simultaneously throughout the world, they most certainly could. They don't for financial reasons.
Because a customer could purchase the movie from another zone, he is provided more options. Suddenly the local distributor has to compete against internatial distributors. The customer is no longer at the mercy of arbitrary release dates.
By restricting the import of Zone 1 DVDs until the local version comes out, the French government is granting a brief monopoly to the local distributors. No longer can the customer choose to get the movie now internationally. He has the single choice granted by the local distributor: to wait.
The question here is why the French government feels it necessary to help large corporations keep choice away from consumers.
Obiwan also commented, "So you wonder, why would the Italians bother seeing it at all if they could get the DVD in a few weeks?" Perhaps because they enjoy seeing movies on bigger screens than they can afford with better sound than they can afford. There will always be a demand for quality theatres. A local theatre recently re-ran The Matrix and drew solid crowds wanting to recapture the magic of the big screen. Many of these people already owned the DVD.
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
It's religious - but does not promote one particular religion (other than monotheism in general). The nation's founders were pretty insistent upon that point - and since we're such a polyglot to begin with a state religion has never reared it's head. There is no Constitutional requirement that the President be a Baptist (for instance), nor is there an official "Church of the United States" the way many other countries require similar things. In the UK, for instance, there is a "Church of England" who's titular head is the reigning monarch. Many of the other states of Europe have a dominant and/or state-supported religion in vaguely similar fashion. Here in the US we've had Methodists, Southern Baptists, Catholics, Presbytarians, Anglicans, and all sorts of other religions (granted, all were within the umbrella of Christianity, but that's the choices we've had so far) represented in our choices as President. A Jew was the Vice-Presidential candidate of one of the two major parties this year, and no one batted an eye over it. Yes, the currency says "in God we trust", but which God is entirely up to you in the end. The penalties for having different beliefs (if any) are social (in that if you butcher goats or something as a form of worship and don't bathe, people will probably avoid you), not legal.
Continuing that thought, we also have no "forbidden" religions here. Though there are people here who turn their noses up at the more esoteric faiths, there are no laws banning them. You can practice Falun Gong here until the cows (sacred cows to the Hindu!) come home, but not in the country of it's origin, China. Try being anything other than Shinto in Japan. Or a Christian in Egypt.
In my neighborhood, I'm a Jew married to a Catholic with houses on three sides of me. One is inhabited by Catholics, one by Protestants, and one by Wiccans. There are many places in this world where barbed wire would have gone up between our houses. But not in America.
- -Josh Turiel
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
We treated Native Americans badly. Very badly. No doubt about it. We kept slaves after most of the rest of the world had stopped - certainly a stain. When Catholics started migrating here in quantity during the late 19th century, shops in Boston posted the infamous NINA signs (No Irish Need Apply). Until the civil rights upheval of the 1960's, blacks were excluded from many areas of society.
I know that - and I also know that other nations have had their moments of shame as well. The British locked out the Jewish refugees during World War II. We didn't take many of 'em, either. The French have had ample moments of blood and intolerance - the Vichy regime was awful, for instance, and the Reign of Terror deprived France of their best and brightest for half a century. Those are just two example countries, and relatively civilized ones. Look at the violence in the Balkans over ethnicity and religion - look at the conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, the guerrilla violence in Latin America, and the battles still raging in much of Asia - on Sri Lanka, in Tibet, and in Indonesia and the Phillipines.
Religion and Ethnicity have been sources of tribal conflict between humans since time began, and will continue to do so for the duration of the species. America, though, is the one place in history and time that has managed to rise most of the way past that in our short time (relative to history) as a nation. Acknowledging our failure to achieve perfection should not prevent us from taking credit for what we do have here - and should not encourage us to rest on our national laurels. We still have a ways to go, though we've come a long ways.
- -Josh Turiel
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:2)
> Alas, this is an artificial scarcity.
Do you think the 35mm prints required for an
international distribution grow on trees? Or do
you think they're "cheap" to make an distribute?
Or do you not believe the law of supply and demand
applies to film distribution? Do you believe that, when a 70mm film is only shown in 8 cities, it's some weird conspiracy, or could you understand that there are staggering costs associated with this?
Did you think movie execs sit in board rooms deciding things like "let's deprive the Italians
from the privilege of seeing our film for 9 months?" and get a sinister laugh out of it?
There's no malice behind it, it's simply economy.
If the demand for the aforementioned film were
remarkably high in Italy, economic principles could lead to its being released there sooner.
Unfortunately, reality is the driving force here.
If you still want to call that "artificial scarcity" then go ahead. But I would recommend
that you research the costs involved in film
distribution before you totally dismiss the need
for a distribution company to perform to a budget
and acheieve a positive profit to loss ratio, as
"artificial." Because there really are finite resources involved here.
When cinema is all digital, we can revisit this discussion, because when the industry tries to maintain the status quo *without* the limits of resources, you'll be correct in your comments.
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
As for having to become a wannabe American, it is you that are trying to force a culture on to people. If you're so confident in French culture, why are you so rigid about "defending" it?
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
Re:how incredibly arrogant (Score:2)
I agree 100% with your assessments!
The problem with the Acadamie Francise is that in their zeal to protecting the language, they are threatening to turn that language into the modern equivalent of Latin.
After all, look at English, Russian, and even Japanese. They have borrowed a LOT of words from other languages to make it their own. After all, Modern English is 60% Germanic origin and 40% Romance origin (thanks to this thing called the Battle of Hastings in 1066). American English has particularly picked up words from other languages thanks to the various waves of immigration in US history. In fact, a number of words in Yiddish (spoken by the Jews that came from Eastern Europe to the USA in the late 19th Century) are now common English words!
Re:But when it comes to food (Score:2)
Small wonder why there is now great interest in the cuisine of China.
And people are discovering in major droves the cuisine of Italy (which in my opinion is WAY underrated) and also Spanish cuisine. I love Spanish food, especially from the Catalan region.
Re:Tell me something new (Score:2)
Re:Tell me something new (Score:2)
> having practiced it (I, for example) knows it's false.
Well, I haven't met many Frech(wo)men who have learned German, so kudos to you. Personally I have no biases against the French or their language, I just wish the reverse were true also. The cake takes the French couple I met in San Diego that saw the (front) license plate on my car with the German flag and the eagle and asked me if that was a Nazi insignia.
> French isn't a good language for technical matter, nor for business. It is, however, perfect
> for arts and diplomacy.
Well, that's a matter of debate. If you consider long-windedness a virtue in diplomacy, so be it. On the other hand, I consider French one of the most pleasing languages for choral music--after German, naturally .
I think neither French nor German (or most of their related languages for that matter) contain the necessarly flexibility to describe our new technological world. In that respect English is far superior. It has neither the grammatical rigidity nor the ideological purity to shun coining new terms as required. German at least has given up on that front and pretty much eagerly embraced English terminology, while the French still fight the Good Fight. Come on, calculatrice numerique or computer, which would you rather print on a box?
> And your point about saliva is stupid.
Come on, throw me a bone. That was meant purely as a joke, since so many people accuse German of being guttural and producing a lot of saliva.
Tell me something new (Score:2)
> None of that germanic harshness.
You and your Front National buddies must be watching too many Hitler speeches with subtitles. Get the dubbed versions, they're more melodious and you might actually understand what he was saying, rather than just stare at all them pretty uniforms and flags.
It's funny how the French have these rabid emotions against anything German, whereas on the other side of the Rhine people couldn't be more indifferent towards the French. In fact, the German language has adopted more frenchism than ever before. And the German accent has practically cloned the French one--if you can actually roll your R's nowadays you're a weirdo. Embrace and extend--hey, it worked for Microsoft.
> We have the most beautiful language - a good balance between a melifluous sound and
> expressiveness.
A lot of people might say that under voluntary situtations, but when a Frenchman points that out, you simply have to shoot him down. I wouldn't have to carry quite so many rain coats when visiting France if the expressiveness of the French languages produced a bit less flying saliva, thanks. If it were a bit MORE expressive, on the other hand, business lunches might not need to extend to 4pm or so. Check the instruction booklets with the average product and see how many more pages the French section takes than the English, that should shoot the notion of French expressiveness down in a jiffy.
> We have the best football team in the world (world cup 1998
Well, it was that, or France would have kicked everyone out of the country for loosing. You have to throw even the blind chicken an acorn once in a while lest it starve.
> (zinadine zidane).
Funny you should mention him, considering he's about as French as Victor Hugo, whom I'm sure you also consider part of the great French literature.
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:2)
Alas, this is an artificial scarcity. It's the movie industry itself that choose to restrict the availability of the movie in Italy. This law only serves to assist them in keeping that market-defying scarcity in place.
The right thing to do would be to release the movies everywhere simultaneously.
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Re:Not so simple (Score:2)
I'm sure if you found the right EC judge you could find a way of ruling the French cultural opt-out invalid in the case of DVDs too...
Simple answer: (Score:2)
Then, to paraphrase Marie Antoinette, you can have your cake and eat it!
Bon Chance!! Viva la Revolution!!
how incredibly arrogant (Score:2)
I am a french speaker myself, although from Belgium (I live in the USA).
As a french speaker who has learned several languages (including asian ones) I am particularly amused by anyone claiming that their language is the most beautiful one - even if that happens to be french. Pleeeease!
As far the anglicisms like 'le weekend', well, Belgians have never had the hangup the french have for such words. Not only do we use them, but we typically make fun of the french for their attitude regarding these words (French and Belgians have a long history of making fun of each other
As far as moliere - very enjoyable to read - very funny plays. But hardly the best quality litterature, in any language.
Re:Go play in hell... (Score:2)
I used an American film/director simply for points of reference. I think you forget the fact that there are different distributors for the domestic and worldwide releases of films.
Let's take for example the highly acclaimed film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Called Best Picture by lots of folks, this film wouldn't be seen by anyone if Sony Pictures Classics (God bless em) didn't buy the rights to distribute it. If me and you don't got to the theaters and actually SEE this movie, it could be lost forever without distrobution.
But how? You ask. Simply put, you can sink three to four million dollars in a movie and no one other than the folks at film festivals will see it. Nobody. Zilch, zip, nada. People like Sony Pictures Classics, Miramax, Paramount Pictures Classic (which just began), Artisan, and others try to find films you've never heard of, by people you've never heard of, foreign or domestic, and let you see them.
It takes millions of dollars to distribute a film. You have advertising, marketing, interviews, premiers, all kinds of things you and I never think of. Your average movie has to make back three times its budget for it to make a dime in the black. This, simply, is why everyone laughed at James Cameron for making Titanic for 300 million. It'd have to make a fortune for it to earn anything. But guess what. 20th Century Fox believed in him enough to stake a good chunk of the company on its success. It is now the highest grosser of all time. Figures, huh.
Ever heard a little picture called The Blair Witch Project? Perfectly conceived, marketed, and the highest budget-to-gross film ever made period. Artisan bought the rights for a million dollars. It made over a hundred and thirty million. And to think, everyone laughed at them for buying it at Sundance.
Not every film or filmmaker gets his shot, and going to the theater is one of those chances he gets. While he (or she) may make money from the video, its the theaters that count. Asses in seats are what the studios want, and direct-to-video is a hard road for any filmmaker to 'make it big'.
Re:blah blah blah (Score:2)
I'll tell you precisely who has the right: The Studios.
Yes, these wonderful, friendly folks who bring you hours of entertainment a year are the ones who created and support Region Coding.
And as for the comments on the lack of a ban for VHS: We seem to have forgotten there is Rental Pricing, which has been going on for years and years now. Rental Pricing was basically the embryotic version of Region Coding, where they (ie, The Studios) could finally put a stranglehold on things.
The government is doing nothing the Studios are 100% behind. It's not uncommon, or unexpected, or any different than it has always been.
Is it right? Depends.
Is it business? Absolutely.
That's amazing (Score:2)
Releasing all movies simultaneously (Score:2)
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:2)
Assuming these actually are the same prints used for a US domestic distribution in the first place. This certainly isn't the case where the films are dubbed or subtitled.
Re:Isn't this against EU rules? (Score:2)
Its the US style of "copyright" which should be spelt "controlright", because it extends into areas other than copying.
why is it anything to do with copyright where that (paid for) copy is enjoyed?
Because corporate copyright owners want things this way. They have been lobbying to create laws and treaties which extend copyright in these ways.
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
Re:Dubbed movies in French (Score:2)
Films are usually dubbed (and subtitled) locally so as to ensure that audience can understand them. The French probably do not want films in Canadian French...
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
IIRC this beer originated in Eastern Europe anyway...
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
The US also makes imports illegal (Score:2)
In the early '80s I used to buy very cheap "Greatest Hits" albums of US artists, on cassette, from places like Spain. The US record companies and distributors raised a big fuss about these *legitimate* recordings. They had paid a lot of money for exclusive US distribution rights for say, Jimi Hendrix, and did not want to be undersold by cheap products licensed for the poorer parts of Europe and Asia. Today the only imported music I see in shops is expensive stuff.
If anyone could point me to good information on the current US laws on music importation I'd like to see how they compare to France's.
It's interesting how corporations love Free Trade for non-intellectual property, but hate it for intellectual property.
Dubbed movies in French (Score:2)
And the films are dubbed in France almost all the time, because France won't import a film that isn't dubbed locally and filmmakers don't want to have to pay twice for that dubbing. So the same reels could be sent over there if they wanted to.
It's a purely economical reason why the films are not shown at the same time. And it kinds of make sense to the French to say: Well if you're not going to send us the reels to show in theatres, you're not going to make money out of your DVDs too with the people who would buy them instead of seeing it in theatre.
Rather hypocritical IMHO, but that's how international commerce works.
Re:I live here (Score:2)
Ok, it may be flame-bait, but I have to ask:
In this era of globalization, why protect any one culture? Who are you protecting it from? Who do these laws serve?
If the laws are there to protect the people, then you're protecting an idea that is appearently not desired by the people. If it was desired, then there'd be no need to protect it, because the people would protect it themselves.
In some way, isn't protecting a culture somewhat similar to interferring with what could be a natural evolution process? What if someone proteced you from the automobile, or from the Internet? If someone was there to protect the existance of that lizard that crawled out of the primortial ooze, where would we be? (apologies to the creationists)
Also, I hope your culture is defined by more than your language, your football teams, and your books. A culture should be defined by as how you inter-relate with yourselves and with other, and what you contribute to the common good. (thanks for the fries?)
I like to think that the thing that defines Americans is our ability to adapted, adjust, and expand, in a fraction of the time that other cultures have. We incorporate things from other cultures in an effort to enhance our own. I hope NO ONE tries to protect us from that.
NOTE: I'm not claiming that we don't make mistakes, but in only 224 years, we've accomplished quite a bit...
Re:I live here (Score:2)
could you imagine how boring the World would be if it were all entirely Americanised
I can tell you one thing... there's nothing boring about living here...
We should concentrate on SHARING our culture with people who immigate
What is the point of learning something if you don't use it? Knowledge is nothing if it never gets used. Knowing that France has good food does me no good what so ever. On the other hand, learning how the French cook, and using those techniques in my own cooking is a good idea? You seem to feel that by my doing that, the French are somehow diminished. Seems like that's a bit of a purist attitude, don't you think?
If the world had evolved as a single culture, obivously, we would not be having this discussion, but, you're saying that that world, in whatever form it would have taken, would be boring.... and that I find hard to believe.
Everyone wants the Americans to accept their culture for what it is, and yet no-one is willing to except our culture... and that is because our culture is too diverse.
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
_____________
I don't think that sort of thing is legal. (Score:2)
Wasn't it obvious that as soon as Home theatre technology became available then consumers would stop going to Movie theatres in favour of their home setups?
Also...
IANAL but I have looked into this issue before. If I buy a DVD then I have bought the right to play that DVD for my own entertainment.
You cannot put proviso's such as "Ahh but not in France" on that right. After all I've bought a legit copy through normal consumer channels [ie: Amazon].
It's just sour grapes on the French Movie theatres part. The European court will throw this out fairly rapidly.
Re:Isn't this against EU rules? (Score:2)
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:2)
Are you aware of the fact that a few people around the world still don't understand American English perfectly (you know, there are even people who don't speak English at all - no kidding), and therefore need silly things such as translation and dubbing ?
Those things happen to take quite some time. Hence the delay.
Thomas Miconi
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:2)
He meant : "Something that prevent you from buying [random Schwarzenneger movie] as soon as it's released can give a significant help to [random indie studio movie]".
Thomas Miconi
Re:The /. Article is misleading (Score:2)
pétard
Re:Isn't this against EU rules? (Score:2)
"Immediately" is a very long time when it comes to satellite television. The UK based Sky Television has for years been deactivating cards used by fully paying subscribers for the heinous crime of calling their hotline from outside the UK. The EU turns a blind eye, because its free trade rules supposedly don't apply to copyrights.
--
Secretary of Culture? (Score:2)
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
Just a little note: this bill is NOT aimed at preventing stupid Hollywood movies to invade France. Nope.
The goal is to prevent consumers from buying DVD to watch these movies at home, and thus push them to go to cinemas.
This said, I don't particularly agree with this thing. In fact, I dislike this whole zone thingy.
As always, on Slashdot, people are more concerned in trolling than in actual analysis...
You americans always amuse me with your prejudice about France. Really funny how you see us. Really false also, but that's why it's funny.
wait a minute: Laws? Movies? what the #I(^&???? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't this against EU rules? (Score:2)
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:2)
Huh? Something that prevents you from watching the film can make it more popular?
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:2)
Of course, if it's not any good, then it won't make money. But why protect films that suck?
Buy me a ticket out of here, j'décrisse! (Score:2)
Once again, France complains that this will hurt the french language. Well i'm a native french quebecer and I hate France for being such loudmouthed fools. "Vee are deestingwished! Vee are beeooteefull!" It's an interesting little tidbit that France French (vs Quebec French) is the bastardized accent while the Quebec dialect is the original accent. According to ancient retardology (and please forgive my lack of details, I used to sleep through history class), some lard-assed french monarch decided that his upper-class fellowship should have a distinguished language from the common folk. That's when they started talking funny with their noses up so damned high. Well I'm a crappy storyteller but France has always been doing these stupid things to try and stand out, to be "better" and more glamorous than the rest of the world. They talk funny, they wear silly hats, they're about 10 years behind everyone technology-wise (think Minitel), and the women don't shave. Of course that shaving bit has nothing to do with the topic, but my point is that France is doing the opposite of everyone else just because they've always loved being the center of attention, whether it's by passing a stupid law or just by broadcasting a game show involving jello and livestock. Just like today's pre-teen generation, they can't just sit down and be normal for one moment, and this is just another demonstration of that trait.
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
Just a thought.
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Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
Yes, we are fiercely proud of our national heritage.
Great, so should everybody, but not to the point where it overrides common sense.
We have the most beautiful language - a good balance between a melifluous sound and expressiveness. None of that germanic harshness.
Which is why I sometimes feel like I've been garling with marbles after speaking french for a while. Try Italian for a language that most people find more audibly pleasing -- included a majority of frenchmen from a survey I read in l'Express a while back.
It is a shame that we must defend it so vigorously against franglais abominations such as le weekend
I suppose this explains why all the french people I know like to make fun of the way les quebecois use funny ancient french words instead of using such linguisically pure words as parking.
We have the best football team in the world (world cup 1998 and european cup 2000), and the best football player (zinadine zidane).
Of course! None of them play in the french national league! It also explains why only 2 french league teams have ever one a european championship -- ever.
We have the best literature, check out Moliere, for example.
I suppose the supposed supremacy of french litterature explains the near absence of plays by Moliere outside of France and the frequent adaptations of Shakespeare's plays in Paris.
I could continue...
Please don't, you have little of interest to say...
Pat
Sometimes I'm embarassed to be french, right now for example...
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:2)
One thing I admire in the French as a people, they reject silly laws by simply ignoring them. I don't see French videophiles paying much attention to this new one. The French have a very commendable anti-authrority streak in their national psyche, and it's something we could all learn from.
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:2)
The right way is to start releasing movies all over the world at the same time. But of course, they won't do that.
Did you know movie theatres outside the US usually end up using second-hand film that's already been shown in the US - yet customers don't get to pay a lower price for second-hand goods?
Re: (Score:2)
Napster in France (Score:2)
Re:how incredibly arrogant (Score:3)
That's what I always liked about English. It's a mix of features and phrases and structures from other languages, and despite beign a nightmare for non-native speakers to figure out, it's had a great deal of success at spreading itself. Sort of like the Perl of spoken languages.
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:3)
Unlike French in France, or say (to make an example in our own hemisphere) Quebec, for instance.
The biggest reason we have no official language is that there is no such thing as an ethnic "American" (not factoring in the Native American people) per se - we're generally much more of a mishmash than you see anywhere else in the world. This is partly because America was smart enough not to have an official religion (unlike most of the rest of the world) and partly because we're relatively new in the timetable of civilization and still have large numbers of immigrants assimilating into us.
The other side of this is that we do offer most of our government services in other languages (but it depends - you won't find the local Social Security office offering help in Spanish in the middle of Boston's Chinatown, for instance), and most public schools offer, at the very least, classes in English as a second language with some instruction in the student's native language. Again, this depends somewhat on just how obscure the student's language is, and if there's enough speakers of it for the school system to justify instruction - if you're the only Spanish speaker in Podunk, North Dakota you're not going to get any special help but if you're in Texas or Southern California you can live most of your life in a Spanish cocoon.
That said, English skills are essential to take advantage of this country's greatest asset: the ability to move freely in society according to merit and skill. If you only speak a different language, your life will be confined to the community of people who speak the same language as yourself and you deserve no better. I'd say the same of an English-only speaker in France, though. If you are going to make your life in a country you are a fool if you don't learn the dominant language of the nation as best as you can.
The French chauvinism towards language is pretty much unique, though. English, like many other languages, has assimilated words from other languages when they were the bast way to communicate a concept or thing. We've got words that are directly lifted from Spanish, German, French, and Latin, among others - and many more hybridized words. The average Frenchman may occasionally speak of ordering "le Big Mac", but for some reason that infuriates the French culture fanatics who see French civilization as the only proper way of life and everything else to be the mark of the "barbarians". Perhaps they're still bitter over Jerry Lewis. Or the Maginot line. Or how most grapes nowadays are grown from California root stock. Or something like that.
Whatever.
- -Josh Turiel
I disagree (Score:3)
So, if a french consumer gets sued for buying a Zone 1 DVD from Italy, Germany or UK, he can countersue against the French State at the European Court in Strasbourg. And he will definitely WIN, because no member state can have laws that protect its industry from the other states' ones. If Zone 1 DVD are legal elsewhere in the EU, then they must be available for inter-state sale in France.
The only way the French state has to enforce this law is by having it approved by the European Parliament.
Ciao,
Roberto.
Re:To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:3)
Also, I think you'll find that many films do make a lot of their money from the home market; in some cases it can turn a cinema flop into a modest success....
Actual facts written in the law (Score:3)
I read the actual text of the decree. The decree is actually a patch upon regulations that impose a certain delay that is imposed between the moment a film is shown in theaters and the moment it can be sold or rented in videocassettes, video discs, DVDs and so. The decree makes it explicit that this delay holds whatever linguistic version is concerned.
These regulations were originally imposed by the movie theater lobbies. Similarly, most TV channels cannot broadcast real movies on Saturday evening, because it was thought that TV may kill movie theaters. I find such things a bit ridiculous (I myself think theaters would have more clients if they were cheaper... but they are coming to it, with cheap monthly "all you can see" passes), but France is, as the US and many other countries, partially run by lobbies.
Many movies are shown in France a certain time after they were shown in the US; for instance, Chicken Run, shown last summer in the US, is shown now in France. This is not a legal disposition; this is merely a choice of the big movie companies. Sometimes, Zone 1 DVDs (in original version) were imported when the film was shown at theaters.
Sucks to be a Rocky Horror fan... (Score:3)
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
Worse if you're English (Score:3)
We get our films way after the rest of Europe because movie companies are so tight we typically get the reels that were shown in the US, after the film has closed in their theatres. At least with dubbed films they actually have to bother about making a fresh set of films up with the new audio on them. As a result the French end up with less scratches as well as getting the film earlier. That said, they have to put up with any English people speaking as though they've just got back from the dentist and the anasthetic hasn't worn off yet. It is really strange to here how other nationalities think you sound. If that made sense.
Misleading title (Score:3)
Irony? Not. (Devil's advocate) (Score:3)
Not ironic at all, at least not to him. I couldn't read that link, I got a 404, but he probably thinks, as we do, that software patents often grant exculsive access to obvious algorithms to be used for an unfair business advantage.
So how could such an intelligent, forward-thinking man promote region-coding? Well, I imagine that's not the point for him. The POINT is probably that some lobbying group has convinced him that the theatres lose money when a video, be it dvd or vhs, gets imported (lobbyists probably say "smuggled") before the first-run is over, thereby taking money away from legitimate French businesses and giving to these evil American pig-dogs.
Stereotypes and Monty Python jokes aside, he probably has a point: local theatre owners get screwed by so-called "pirated" movies. I don't have statistics on this, and they probably don't either, so maybe the problem is negligible. But maybe it's not.
Yeah, I think releasing movies at the same time worldwide might be an okay fix to that problem. Region coding is not, and it wasn't really the point of this legislation, I'm guessing. He basically used "Zone 1" to mean "DVDs of movies which we're still showing in theatres."
Stupid, uninforcable (Score:3)
Play247 [play247.com] already do this sort of thing for the U.K. Not that it is illegal to sell R1 DVD's in the U.K, but being based in the Channel Isle's aparently makes it easier for them to secure R1 DVD's from the U.S. They get around import restrictions by sending each order in a seperate jiffy bag, and not selling the goods for more than £18 each (Good over £18 are taxable on import).
There is no reason why Play247 couldn't offer the same service to our French friends over there. The only thing this law will do in France is to harm DVD sales.
Isn't this against EU rules? (Score:3)
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:3)
And, by the way, this
Comment removed (Score:3)
To play a little game of Devil's Advocate... (Score:5)
A Gasp! is heard through the crowd.
But why? You ask. Well, I'll tell you. For one, movies don't come out at the same time all over the world. While we Americans love to think the world revolves around us (and there are many who'll never think otherwise), that's just not the case. While a DVD may come out over here for What Lies Beneath this January, it just opened in Italy. So you wonder, why would the Italians bother seeing it at all if they could get the DVD in a few weeks?
I'm all for supporting the filmmakers I like, love and respect. I would be happy to give my money towards Ridley Scott's efforts, or Paul Thomas Anderson's, or Darren Aranofsky's, and theatrical runs are what fuel the fire for them to get financing so they can (hopefully) make better movies. Of course it's all about money, and the fact that studios don't have all the legalese worked out for distrobution by the time it hits American audiences. But the point still remains that a filmmakers efforts are (normally) judged by either:
a) How much the film makes at the theaters, or
b) How many awards it takes.
You have to have one or the other, and hopefully both. American Beauty wasn't racing up the box office until it won Best Picture, Actor, Director, Cinematography and Screenplay. After that, Dreamworks Re-released it (for the third time) and it made its way over 100 million. Sometimes the best films get looked over, and believe it or not, Region Coding can actually help films from becoming that way.
It's still business, I'll freely admit, but it's also a question of loyalty and how far you'll go (all the way to the theater) to support the directors/actors/writers you like.
The /. Article is misleading (Score:5)
The French have a law stating that movies cannot be sold on video (OR DVD) for 6 months after they hit the theaters. It used to be 9! They cannot appear on pay per view for 9 months and on premium movie channels (Canal+) for 1 year. This law simply bans selling Zone 1 DVDs of the movie while the ban is in effect. These fell into a loophole before.
Honestly, it's no worse than the old law was! A little better even, since the time has been reduced. The real "accros" will be able to get their fix over the net anyway.
pétard
Re:The French are paranoid about their culture (Score:5)
The real reason they hate the US is that after they bankrupted themselves financing your revolution you made that pesky declaration of independence rather than becoming a french client state out of sheer gratitude. Grabbing Louisiana at fire-sale prices and then making a great deal of money out of it just added insult to injury in french eyes.
About the only way you could rub it in any further is by naming a few major landmarks after notable french defeats: most of the really good ones are gone (Trafalgar, Waterloo, Blenheim) and I imagine Dien Ben Phu Square is probably a bit near the quick for the US, but Washington DC could be suitably adorned with a "Napoleon Died A Lonely Death In Exile Avenue" at no great cost.
Comment removed (Score:5)