K-ON! ... I want to watch it. In HD. I want to buy it. In HD. In the UK.
But no. I'm in the UK. There is a US version. MangaUK have previously stated it's too expensive to create a region B bluray, well too expensive to get the existing Region A master and make region B versions from it.
I think that statement should automatically forfeit their right to their distribution of it in the UK. Someone else should now be allowed to do it instead.
Same goes for anything really.
All this region locking on DVD & Bluray. A US version is created, but region locking on it for region A, then when it comes to creating a non-US version it's "too expensive" or just not done. They should now forfeit any legal justification for anyone not being allowed to break any region-locking and encryption on a piece of work. Esepcially if they are refusing to, or making it impossible to get the piece of work designed for that region. I'm not talking about language here, just about having to buy region-specific hardware and discs. If K-ON! was released in purely Japanese no subtitles, but Multi-Region I would have to live with that (but I don't see it!).
There is no obvious justification for the region lock on this other than to control sales. If a company refuses, or makes it too hard/expensive for other regions to be created we surely should have the right to break the encryption. In the case on K-ON! it looks like they created the masters of the HD version, then just made it too expensive for MangaUK to have access to them to create the Region B discs. Ultimately pricing out Region B. So, they already exist, in digital format, but they basically said to Region B. "Fuck You". Which'll be the excuse if anyone ever tries to argue the case my previously stated argument... i.e. "We offered at this price, but they said no". Or, "We asked for gold bricks to be shitted, but they couldn't manage it."
Especially when they create a single region-locked disc of something as friendly as K-ON! It's not exactly porn or violence. If it was multiregion would it offend anyone?
I would be quite happy to pay for a UK Blu-Ray of K-ON! but no. I have to spend £250 for a multi-region Blu-Ray player and then all the expense of importing the US versions... again, I will re-iterate, I don't give a crap about the dubs, just the subtitles, surely that would have been cheaper?
This kind of crap is just actively encouraging piracy and I don't think the distributors and the people in charge understand this. Not sure they even give a shit about the rest of the world either.
I can go to a "dodgy" streaming site, click on a stream, press a button, or hack the HTML, and *bang* an mp4 is on my machine. It's rarely 1080p but sometimes it is. It's easy enough using dlna or xbmc to watch that on my plasma.
But like I said, I really want to pay for these, I like K-ON! I want to actively make sure the people who made it get some sort of recompense for the work they did in making it for god's sake. Your distributors are fucking forcing me to think about finding it by different means.
By the time "they" have all squabbled over who owns which rights to what show in each country, we've all gone "screw it", typed the name into Google. Clicked the first result. It's not the legitimate provider who has provided the studios and distributors with the money for the show, and I feel bad for the artists and story writers and all the other hard-works for using it, but there is literally no other way than spending £100s, for the Blu-Rays.
The people in the suits with the law degrees who have created the really broken system we have now, just so they can have lots of money themselves, really need to be taken round the back of the internet and silently "removed". Hardly anyone will miss the greedy, selfish turds who have created this me-first culture we live in.
This did start out as a Google+ post, but it got a bit large and dis-jointed (sorry about that).... and I can use the language I feel expresses the anger I feel right now (and again sorry about that).
No comments:
Post a Comment