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White House petition: ban region-locking

ShockingAlberto said:
I agree that legislation is what is needed to change this, but that's not what this petition says, and you're telling me a more nuanced position.

Consider it pedantic if you like, but I don't find the idea of putting my name to something that someone is assuring me is different from what is written terribly thought-out.
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Regulation = legislation. Please don't withhold a signature over nitpicking.
 
metalslimer said:
Um, this is a global issue, so truly this can never be banned by one country. You would need governments from all over the world to ban it.
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Couldn't it? Systems sold in the US could be region free and play all games. At the same time a Japanese system could be region locked and only play JP games.
 
I signed. Living in Japan as a native English speaker sucks royally. So having region free hardware and software would be awesome on so many levels. I also passed this on to family and friends as well. Maybe we can get some momentum going.
 
how useful are White House Petitions?

I have read about them on CNN a few times but it's always some Joke Petition the last one I read about was the White House saying NO to building of a Death Star (star wars)
 
Smiles and Cries said:
how useful are White House Petitions?

I have read about them on CNN a few times but it's always some Joke Petition the last one I read about was the White House saying NO to building of a Death Star (star wars)
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I don't know how useful it is, but if it gains some traction, then more people will get involved in the process and this generally isn't a bad thing. I honestly hope it gets off the ground, because I've always felt that this region locking thing sucks and living abroad this becomes even more annoying.
 
Cheesemeister said:
One side at a time.
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This is how I see Cheesemeister

Superman25.png


6437176_gal.jpg
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You know if it gets enough votes they will release a statement on it. Its not like they are going to do anything about it, kinda like every other online petition.
 
lol they upped the required signatures from 30 or 50k I don't remember which to 100k.

Guess they got tired of having to answer so many genuine concerns with bullshit answers. I don't think there's been 1 petition answered where they said 'you know what? You're right, we're gonna change and do this...'.

EVERY single answer has been 'we value your contribution but we cannot do this because of bullshit reason xyz'. Then fuck off and take the site down if absolutely nothing will change, even if they upped required signatures to a million and it passed they wouldn't do anything. It's really insulting.

ShockingAlberto said:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/get-rid-petitionswhitehousegov/DLBvj7Vh
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I will definitely sign this though, just to see what their response is.
 
"Preventing the sales of books across borders would be absurd" according to the petition, but that is exactly what happens. A lot of books carry a not legal for sale in the United States label over here. Anyway, the petition is meaningless as region-locking is not only done to screw over consumers. Often there are legal reasons behind it, especially for films.
 
Angry Fork said:
lol they upped the required signatures from 30 or 50k I don't remember which to 100k.

Guess they got tired of having to answer so many genuine concerns with bullshit answers. I don't think there's been 1 petition answered where they said 'you know what? You're right, we're gonna change and do this...'.

EVERY single answer has been 'we value your contribution but we cannot do this because of bullshit reason xyz'. Then fuck off and take the site down if absolutely nothing will change, even if they upped required signatures to a million and it passed they wouldn't do anything. It's really insulting.



I will definitely sign this though, just to see what their response is.
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Some of those petitions are crazy, though. I mean, there was a petition to allow Louisiana to peacefully become it's own territory? What can they do about that? It's silly stuff. However, I do believe that the really issue shouldn't be whether or not they comment on the petition itself, but just getting other people aware of the issue in the first place would be a good starting point.

I'm more interested in starting the dialog about region locking in the first place. It's becoming all to common and some companies (like Nintendo) take it way too far. At least if we can get people talking about it, then we're making a step in the right direction. Maybe it'll end up dead before it gets anywhere, but it can't hurt to throw a sig on the page regardless. At least that's my opinion on the matter.
 
EDarkness said:
Some of those petitions are crazy, though. I mean, there was a petition to allow Louisiana to peacefully become it's own territory? What can they do about that?
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Organize a poll. Require at least 75% voter turnout. If 60% votes in favor, let them become their own nation? Like it happened in South Sudan.
 
Joni said:
Organize a poll. Require at least 75% voter turnout. If 60% votes in favor, let them become their own nation? Like it happened in South Sudan.
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How'd that work out for Puerto Rico? They actually WANT to be a State, yet getting something like that done is gonna be long hard and damn near impossible. Same for dropping out of the States.
 
not enough time to reach 100K

NEOGAF is global but to sign you only need a US zipcode or are they tracking IPs?

this is like having a Region-Locked Petition to... ironic
 
Cheesemeister said:
This isn't asking for blocking sales of games to minors, this is seeking to increase sales by making imports playable.
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It's also asking to strip an advantage from local licensors/distributors and retailers, which is going to be a very hard sell.

And I say this as someone who lives in Australia, where we have it way worse with region-locking and regional price markups than most places. So it's not like I wouldn't want to see things change.
 
Nah I dont think I will.

Unless I am mistaken, other countries are bound by different laws on content and media. We're not entitled to their laws, nor should we be imposing our laws on other nations and their businesses or economies.

tldr:
Fuck your entitlement.
 
Erethian said:
It's also asking to strip an advantage from local licensors/distributors and retailers, which is going to be a very hard sell.

And I say this as someone who lives in Australia, where we have it way worse with region-locking and regional price markups than most places.
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I think that companies will adjust. There are things we can already buy from around the world. I buy U.S. movies from Amazon all the time and with my region free DVD player (that I also purchased from Amazon JP) I can watch them freely. Locking things down really doesn't help the consumer at all, especially in the world we live in now. Local retailers and business will adjust as they always have.
 
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