DVD drives in computers are not set up to play DVDs from all regions, and when people wrote software (DeCSS) to get around this, The Man came down hard. Should you be desperate to obtain a multi-region DVD player, there's a store somewhere in the US that sells such things. I don't have the URL handy, but http://www.theregister.co.uk linked to their site in an article about The Simpsons DVDs, so a search there for "Simpsons," should turn up what yr after. Flip Jack Valenti off for me.
I find it strange that in a country that is so much immersed in technology liek the USA, region-free DVD players are not more widely available. Here in Holland, most of my friends (including myself) have region-free DVD players. Mine came region-free straight out of the factory, I didn't even have to do programming or replacing some esoteric part to get this. With my steady diet of Anchor Bay and Image Entertainment Euro-DVDs I'm very glad I have this. In fact, I think 90% of my DVD collection comes from the USA, so I wouldn't have much of a collection if I didn't have my region-free player. Frankco.