DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region. DVD video discs may be encoded with a region code restricting the area of the world in which they can be played.

The American DVD Copy Control Association in California requires that DVD-player manufacturers incorporate the regional-playback control (RPC) system—according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, an Australian government agency.

There are six different official regions and two informal variations.^{[citation needed]} DVDs may use one code, a combination of codes (Multi-Region), most codes (Region 0) or every code/no codes (Region All). The commercial DVD player specification requires that a player to be sold in a given place not play discs encoded for a different region; however, region-free DVD players are also commercially available. In addition, many DVD players can be modified to be region-free, allowing playback of all discs.