Selling a DVD player with instructions for changing it's region:

Factual Questions
1

I did a quick search, it seems it’s okay to talk about this.

My store just got access to a bunch of very low-cost DVD players. My store is about five minutes away from Mexico.

If I print up the instructions for converting this region 1 player to region 4, and attach them to said DVD players, would I be breaking any laws?

No firmware upgrades, or anything like that. Just how to hit a few buttons on the remote, in the right order.

I think it’s safe, but I just wanted to make sure before I start. If it’s not legal, rest assured that I won’t do it-- I don’t want to expose my employer to any DMCA hell…

2

I believe that what you are suggesting is actually perfectly legal. IANAL but my understanding is that it is only the responsibility of the manufacturer to ensure that DVD players are region encoded when leaving the factory.

I would imagine that the DVD Forum has bigger fish to fry but if you were a large volume distributor, they might ‘expose’ you as somebody who encourages violation of copyright laws.

My suggestion is that you simply tell the potential customer that you aren’t sure but that they should go online to find out about it. There are hundreds of sites that you can direct them to that will help them without compromising your integrity in the eyes of the DVD player manufacturers.

3

This is apparently perfectly legal in Switzerland. When I bought my DVD player, there were instructions on how to do this stapled to the box, and I have seen the same thing in other stores.

Of course, that has no bearing on the legality of doing it in Texas. (And I’m not a lawyer.)

4

Thanks, but the thing is, I wan to sell them to folks from the border area of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. There are very few households there with (a) computers, and (b) internet access. Thus, the instructions…

5

Popup, that is exactly what I want to do.

6

As I said, I don’t think that you will have a problem if you do this. Just as long as you aren’t a DVD player market maker

7

How is changing the region on a DVD player a copyright issue anyway? One can choose to legally purchase DVDs or make illegal copies irespective of the region setup of the DVD player on which their played. The fact that the player has an onscreen method for changing the region (albeit possibly a “hidden” one) suggests the manufacturer allows for such situations as ** Darth Nader’s ** customers; they buy the player in one region and move it to use it in another. In fact, they usually put a limit on region switches over the life of the product (usually 5 or something), to allow for this but still prevent it from becoming a “regionless” DVD player .