Petteri Pyyny
11 Jun 2001 3:05
According to Financial Times, European Commission sent letters today to major American movie studios asking why world has been divided into eight different DVD region zones.
Inquiry comes after many complaints from consumers about DVD pricing -- most of the movies sold in the U.S. are much cheaper than those in the European Union. DVD purchased from U.S. (region 1) doesn't work in regular European (region 2) DVD player and vice versa.
According to movie industry's earlier comments about the region zones, it has been built because they want to make sure that local versions are shown in the movie theatres before the DVD version is out (in some cases U.S. DVD release date is before European movie theatre release date).