Region madness is driving me up the wall

I cannot believe that I have to run Apple Boot Camp and Windows just to watch a DVD from a different DVD setting as the setting my drive is set to. Why isn't there region-free software for the Mac? Windows has DVD Region Master and a plethora of players that will ignore the region of the disk. Why not for the Mac?

It is absolutely ridiculous. It is ridiculous that a drive bought in 1996 (rpc1) is better than a drive bought in 2007 (rpc2). VLC used to be an option but not with the new Macs, mine included. What is a consumer supposed to do?

They instituted regions for DVDs because they wanted to control piracy. Bollocks! This punitive measure doesn't hurt the big players — do you really think they don't own a rcp1 drive or cannot find a way around this? — it only hurts regular people like you and me, who spent $2228 for a new machine and is now pulling her hair out for want of a solution to this region madness.

The Berlin wall fell in 1989. Today you can book a flight and be in Beijing, China or the former U.S.S.R within a week. We have bi-lateral trade agreements, ASEAN talks and United Nations initiatives with nations from every continent. But sorry... you cannot watch their DVDs.