Region woes hose Obama gift to UK prime minister

It's either a minor diplomatic gaffe or an incredibly nuanced commentary on the current state of international copyright protec... nope, definitely a gaffe: The 25 classic DVDs given to British prime minister Gordon Brown when he recently visited President Obama turned out to be more DRM than drama.

According to the report in the Telegraph, when Mr. Brown returned to 10 Downing Street and tried to relax with the movies, his player returned a wrong-region message and would go no further. It's an embarrassment, atop the original fuss made when the gift was contrasted with Mr. Brown's thoughtful and historically rich gift to Mr. Obama. On the bright side, wouldn't it be something if an incident like this one clarified thinking on certain long-deplored aspects of digital rights management? Or at the very least, caused Vice-President Biden to have to explain why he thinks DRM is a reasonable thing to do to law-abiding -- let alone law-making -- citizens and lawfully purchased products?