DVD region code

DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique introduced in 1997. It is designed to allow rights holders to control the international distribution of a DVD release, including its content, release date, and price, all according to the appropriate region.

Not to be confused with the three ITU regions, for managing the global radio spectrum.

This is achieved by way of region-locked DVD players, which will play back only DVDs encoded to their region (plus those without any region code). The American DVD Copy Control Association also requires that DVD player manufacturers incorporate the Regional Playback Control (RPC) system. However, region-free DVD players, which ignore region coding, are also commercially available, and many DVD players can be modified to be region-free, allowing playback of all discs.

DVDs may use one code, multiple codes (multi-region), or all codes (region free).

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