I read "artificially" as "a debatable contractually-imposed practice", made to look all the more archaic by UHD's choice to be without locking by design.MichaelB wrote: As for "artificially made not to be", it's pretty much never the case that a boutique label will region-lock if they don't have to; it's always a contractual obligation imposed by the rightsholder. A savvy label will actively want people to buy outside the region, and will therefore ensure that there are no compatibility barriers beyond the simple region flag.
However, while not wanting to play the devil's advocate, isn't a label actively looking to sell outside its market... breaching that contract ? The savviness is obvious, and I'm myself part of those who can navigate around region-locking, but, say, Indicator's Region B UK releases are for movies they only have the rights in the UK, possibly because someone else have them elsewhere (in the US, but also in other Region B markets - France, Germany, Italy, etc). One could argue that actively (key word) looking to sell past the borders of the rights they hold is over-stepping contractually.
