Let me start by offering my apologies for starting yet another country of origin thread.

The issue is this: I have a series of "sampler" DVD's that came with a Belgian magazine (HUMO, for all you Belgians out there). These discs usually contain a number of music video's, some movie trailers, excerpts from new DVD releases (e.g. a full episode of 'The Office' or 'Seinfeld') and other snippets. Today I encountered an update for one of these DVD's adding 'Belgium' as the country of origin. Is this correct? Some of the stuff is Belgian, sure, but there's also stuff from the U.S., the U.K. and probably even more countries.

How do we handle this? Should we leave the field empty? Should we try and decide from which locality most of the stuff is (by adding up the running times for various music videos, trailers and other snippets)? Or do we just argue that it's a Belgian sampler, so CoO should be Belgium? Personally, I'm leaning towards leaving the field empty, but I'm not entirely sure. Any interesting opinions?

When in doubt, I tend to leave it blank, but having a few 'collections' in similar circumstances, I offer this:

HUMO, being Belgian, I would suggest the CoO for the "package" is Belgium.  The collection is from that locality, even if the components are from elsewhere.  That particular combination of "motion pictures" is (likely to be) unique to that locality.  There will also be content produced in and exclusive to that locality (e.g. magazine ID).  I can see this argument being shot down with something like "but menus are unique so all movies will have CoO of where the DVD is released", but this is a special instance.  However, when compared with short film festivals, it makes more sense, and I see no reason not to apply the same rules here.

e.g.
"The Animation Show" is a US short film festival, but contains (some) foreign material
"Toofy Film Fest" is a US short film festival, but contains (some) foreign material

...but with both of these, and no doubt others, the festival itself (and therefore the associated DVD) has a unique geographical locality.

Perhaps we need a rule pertaining to "DVD Magazines" (serial releases of DVD material) and compilations (particularly short film collections).  This is not a unique instance, and although it may not affect a majority of (mainstream) users, it is still important.

We also need to distinguish between sample discs that come with magazines (as this appears to be) and what are often referred to as "DVD Magazines", which are actually regular DVD releases where the DVD is the primary release, and the magazine/booklet is the bonus feature (e.g. Stash).



PS - I use tags to show what CoO's are available within each release.