Is there anyway to change the region on a 2011 Macbook Pro?

Question

My brother has locked it onto region 1 after putting in a dvd box set i got from america as it isn't available in the uk using up the final change not realising it would lock it. Apparently there is no pop-up or warning apart from the small message when you change it with how many times you can alter the region.
I am really unhappy about this after spending over a grand on a macbook pro. I live in the UK and this is a major issue as i need region 2 at Uni for editing etc for my course. It seems crazy that this is still a big worry of apple as almost every form of media now is region free as all dvds are released generally at the same time in both the U.S. and Europe to avoid piracy.
If anyone has any idea if this is possible legally as all i've seen online is people talking about flashing drives and all sorts of stuff that would void the warranty. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Thanks for the response. However i do understand it is imposed on them i'm just frustrated that my blu-ray player and my pc are region free without any work arounds and my mac however isn't.
I was merely asking if there was a way to change it so it's set to region 2 permanently.
Of course it isn't going to stop piracy i didn't say that, It is helping though. Although you have the issue of people streaming online which is a completely different issue. But co-ordinating release dates and dvd release dates did and is helping to cut down on piracy outside America. The main reasons for region encoding in the first place was for pricing but it was mainly to help combat piracy outside the U.S. as movies were generally released months later to the other continents.
Up until 6-7 years ago you would have sweaty men down the pub selling and buying vhs/dvds of movies that weren't released into the cinemas in the UK for months. So the move from the studios and distributors for all the major film releases, ones that would be at a major risk of people illegally distributing in Europe would be released at the same time or within a week or 2 at the cinemas.