Yes. Region locks are a fabricated limitation, just another way for Hollywood to extract money from the consumer. You should be annoyed with Marks & Spencer’s for playing ball. Because while one drop might not turn the tide, eventually the dam breaks and some retailer somewhere will find a way and sell unlocked DVD players.

Effecting change in society is an exercise in finding the right pressure point. Hollywood doesn’t care about our feelings on region locks. Sellers do. Put the incentive in the right spot and watch the stars align. A well leveraged arm cannot be overturned.

One benefit of region locks is its crude ability to charge people based on their level of wealth, allowing more people to share in the experience. I've been to national parks in some countries that charge more if you have a passport from a richer country than if you have a passport from a poorer country, which I think is a noble effort to be a little more egalitarian with the distribution of resources. Obviously, not everyone from a poor country is poor and vice versa, but in the absence of a better method it sort of works.

However, I'm not sold on region locks for media that has zero marginal cost to reproduce, nor am I sold on selling someone something and then revoking access to it based on their locale.

You remind me of the last time I drove past Stonehenge in England. It's been paid entry for a long time but I found it surprising to discover tourists get a cheaper rate. It was a flat change though, not dependant on country.

Not only that, by GP's logic Marks & Spencers would somehow be obliged to get you a US region coded DVD of that movie (whether the actual rights holder ever released it or not!).

To be clear: I absolutely hate the ridiculous licensing policies of the movie studios, but they're clearly not Marks & Spencer's fault, or Apple's, for that matter.

It is Marks & Spencers responsibility, even if there's nothing they could have done differently. You're their customer. In this scenario, when the DVD they sold you didn't work the way you wanted it to, they are the ones you should complain to, and they should give you a refund.

Yes, it's their responsibility. And that's why they put a media region lock sticker on the box of the DVD. (And usually it's also printed on the labeled side of the disk.)

Legally, Marks & Spencer must put this restriction into their contract with the customer. And of course these are sometimes implied contracts. Very much based on jurisdiction, case law, etc.

I'm not talking about law, I'm talking about what customers should expect from merchants. Even if there's some fine print somewhere that says otherwise, I expect the thing I bought from a merchant to work for me, and if it doesn't, I expect my money back. If neither of these things happens, I'll no longer be a customer of that merchant.