As an interesting note, in New Zealand it is illegal for retail to sell region-locked DVD players. In fact when region coding came out your average joe doe didn't have a clue as to what region number he was actually in. To confuse matters more NZ now has (nearly unrestricted - see http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/Page____1230.aspx ) parallel-importing of DVD's - making cheaper overseas releases legally available to purchase at any retail outlet. For this reason if it were not illegal to sell region-locked players consumers would have it even worse. France, I believe, also has parallel-importing.