Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Pennsylvania

Is it legal to buy Zone 2 DVD's?

Hi,

Is it legal to buy Zone 2 DVD's in the US?

The DVD's in question are standard French cinema films, most of which are several years old, and are not available in Zone 1 encoding (nor are there any signs that many of them ever will be). I have searched the web extensively on this subject, but I have not found a reliable answer -- some say it's legal, some say it's not, most won't say either way.

Some of the ''is legal'' people say ''unauthorized for sale outside of (whatever region)'' does not mean that it's illegal to buy for individual use from a website, but rather that it's a civil contract between the movie distributor and the vendor, not a criminal (or civil) law that applies to the consumer. Is their argument true?

I do not own any Zone 2 DVD's, so I can't provide the exact wording of the advisory.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act and WIPO get mentioned by both sides. Some say that this only regards illegal copying and has nothing to do with DVD zones.

I know there are technical barriers to playing Zone 2 DVD's on Zone 1 players, but please ignore them for this purpose.

Any information you can give me on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.


Asked on 11/24/01, 1:03 am

2 Answers from Attorneys
Lawrence Graves Coolidge & Graves PLLC

Re: Is it legal to buy Zone 2 DVD's?

I can't see any likelihood of liability for you. Bigger concern is whether the DVD will work on your player -- there have been various attempts to create incompatibility.

Best wishes,

LDWG

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Answered on 11/29/01, 8:47 am
Carolyn Goldfarb Carolyn S. Goldfarb, Esq.

Re: Is it legal to buy Zone 2 DVD's?

In my opinion, under the circumstances you describe, it would not be legal because it would violate section 602(a) of the Copyright Act which would cover foreign imports where the copyright is protected under a foreign law. The DVD is copyright protected under French copyright law. The distribution rights would be violated. We have the Berne treaty of which the US is a signatory, where each member nation agrees to enforce & respect a member nation's copyrights. However, if you purchase 1 copy over the internet, I can't see anything happening to you. Assuming that the DVD is not something like kiddie porn, I can't see Customs seizing it. If anything, the copyright holder would probably go after the distributer.

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Answered on 11/25/01, 1:35 am


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