[HN Gopher] Borderless Media Consumption: Geoblocking Reform
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Borderless Media Consumption: Geoblocking Reform
Author : tosh
Score : 63 points
Date : 2021-12-13 10:37 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fuen.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fuen.org)
| zentiggr wrote:
| I'm in the US, so see this from a bit more abstract point of
| view, but I understand the insanity of being just over a border
| and not being able to watch/listen to media in the same language.
|
| This is an awesome idea, I just wish I wasn't so cynical about
| the likelihood of any success... cash flow is jut a very big
| motivator.
|
| Until we as a species grow past the greed that drives too many of
| us, I fear these fights will be long, slow, and provide little
| gain.
|
| I applaud everyone working for that first inch, though, and maybe
| this is the first step in breaking down these systems.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Canadian here, and [this content is not available in your
| region]
| FredPret wrote:
| Amazon.com vs .ca, audible.com vs .ca...
|
| Drives me up a wall
| DarthNebo wrote:
| I'd say having unfettered internet access is a bigger concern in
| oppressive regimes than being geo-blocked since this a choice
| that OTT companies make.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Here in the UK, we are forced to pay for the TV license which
| funds the BBC, but go to a different country and we lose access
| to the service with no refund possible.
| tomn wrote:
| The TV licensing website says that you can get a refund if
| you're not going to need it; is that not true?
|
| https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/refunds-...
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| You can get a refund if you won't need your licence again
| before it expires, and you have at least one complete month
| left on it. Not helpful e.g. a two week holiday.
| _dain_ wrote:
| you don't have to pay it
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| However, the law says that you do need a license to watch or
| record any programmes shown on TV on any channel (not just
| BBC) on any device.
| eptcyka wrote:
| We've paid for the TV license for the time we wanted to
| watch TV, and then have stopped for years now. It's trivial
| to just not watch television and listen to radio these
| days.
| _dain_ wrote:
| so? they can't prove it unless you let them into your
| house. fuck them.
| kingcharles wrote:
| They can get a warrant to make a forced entry if they
| have probable cause to believe you are watching TV
| without a licence.
|
| https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-administering-
| the-li...
|
| (odd that licensing is with an S but licence in British
| is with a C)
| FredPret wrote:
| See also defence vs defense
| [deleted]
| bserge wrote:
| Tbf, "forced" is a bit of an overstatement. You can just never
| pay and tell the inspector to fuck off with no repercussions.
| Unlike Germany, where your credit score will go down and
| there's a very real risk of jail time.
| vmception wrote:
| yes, that's a shitty user experience but the TV license is the
| problem not your lack of access to it. sorry you're stuck with
| that.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Also an issue is that the BBC may own rights to broadcast in
| the UK, but not other countries, so even if they wanted to,
| they would have legal issues with crossing borders.
| southerntofu wrote:
| This could be easily mitigated by legal regulations on the
| national level. Even if a contract tried to enforce it, the
| law precedes contractual obligations.
| rhino369 wrote:
| The unintended consequence of banning nation specific
| licensees, is that you'd essentially be giving a huge
| advantage to the already global services. Any service
| that isn't global, wouldn't be able to compete with those
| who already are.
|
| Netflix is global, Prime is on its way, and Disney and
| HBO are trying. But a BBC streaming service is going to
| outbid 10/10 times because they can't afford to buy North
| American streaming rights when they don't have a (viable)
| North American service.
|
| The BBC would survives because the law mandates UK
| citizen pay for it. But any non-subsidized local service
| would be dead in the water.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I don't understand how that would work. If the UK passes
| a law stating that TV license payers are allowed to watch
| BBC programmes (e.g. iPlayer) in say, Belgium, then if a
| rights owner prosecutes the BBC for breach of contract
| (in Belgium) how would UK law be applicable?
| captaincaveman wrote:
| Exactly, BBC would need publishing rights in all
| countries the viewers would wish to watch it in. Unless
| they changed all there existing agreements with rights
| holders to not be constrained by territories, which they
| aren't going to do, or at least only for a lot of money
| (and even then they might not be able to if the rights
| are already granted exclusively to someone else).
| atemerev wrote:
| As a person who lived in 5 European countries (academic mobility
| is a great idea, but there are some issues like this), I applaud
| this. I am not optimistic, though: this is finally a sane
| regulation, not a like of "cookie law": usually, these are
| dumped.
| anticristi wrote:
| I didn't read the ePrivacy directive, but I always wondered if
| it is truly dumb. I suspect that it was /marketed/ as dumb by
| ad network so as to nudge users into clicking the "whatever, go
| ahead and profile me" button.
| kuu wrote:
| At least with mobile roaming it was done.
| fmajid wrote:
| IIRC Australia had banned geoblocking, because it was mostly used
| to price-gouge Australians.
| captaincaveman wrote:
| It sounds like these people are naive, I don't think they know
| much about broadcasting/media.
|
| It sounds nice and utopian for the consumer, but do the economics
| even stack up, who is paying for this, most likely the consumer
| or the creative.
|
| How could it even work with all the existing contracts in place,
| I'd assume they would need to continue, so even in this fantasy
| it would only be for new content, and how many years before that
| reaches tipping point?
|
| *edit: less harsh
| lemoncookiechip wrote:
| Using Netflix as an example. Without a VPN, some countries have
| less than 10% of the USA's movie/show library for the same price
| after conversion. This is ridiculous of course. And then there's
| locale shows (Danish, Polish, Japanese...) which aren't aired
| outside of those countries or a set of allowed countries.
| captaincaveman wrote:
| I don't disagree its annoying for a consumer, I live in Europe.
| However, a publisher has to license the content from a
| producer, that producer (or distributor) sets the price on a
| regional basis. In the US the ROI likely stacks up better than
| for Luxemburg. A publisher (Netflix etc) would prefer to have a
| simpler model, but it has to make sense financially. Part of
| the reason large publishers are also increasingly producers,
| not just for exclusivity of content.
| southerntofu wrote:
| While i applaud the concept to destroy all borders, physical or
| otherwise, this introduction of the article left me troubled:
|
| > It's a nuisance for many: While one can move through Europe
| seemingly without borders when travelling (if there is not a
| pandemic)
|
| This used to be mostly true ten years ago. Nowadays identity
| checks are very common (even pre-pandemic) on many transport
| lines, and most bus companies won't let you board a bus without
| an ID card. Some borders have been militarized (for example in
| Calais) while others are heavily guarded and simply having a
| darker skin tone in the wrong mountain or train station will
| prompt checks (for example at the France/Italy border).
| Majestic121 wrote:
| I'm not sure about what borders you're coming from, but I've
| been traveling a lot pre-pandemic between Spain, France, Italy,
| Belgium, and did not have to show my ID at all at the border.
|
| Trains do start to ask for IDs, but this is unrelated to
| borders : it seems to become standard for oui sncf, even for
| internal trains, and probably the buses are on the same track
| for some reason.
| kingcharles wrote:
| I worked for an EU music startup that had to negotiate the rights
| across all these territories. I would guess a significant portion
| of our budget went into getting the right signatures and then
| localizing for dozens of different languages and cultures.
|
| I made the IP restrictions as loose as I possibly could, because
| it was bullshit, and honestly the IP holders aren't exactly
| micromanaging this and checking it, and I had plausible
| deniability because IP checks are not anywhere near 100%
| accurate.
| bserge wrote:
| On that note, I have started using a VPN to my home country
| (where I have a gigabit fiber link) just to stop seeing all these
| fucking ads. Especially on YouTube.
|
| 1-2 ads, fine... But I regularly saw 4-6 on ~15 minute videos,
| give me a fucking break.
|
| I NEVER buy anything based on ads.
| criddell wrote:
| I don't know how you can make progress on this problem without
| addressing how people involved in creative projects get paid.
|
| Do you make it illegal for geographic regions to be part of a
| contract? When you license a piece of music for a project, does
| the musician get paid the same for an internal corporate training
| video as they would for a national TV commercial campaign or for
| a global Disney film?
|
| One of my favorite TV shows from my childhood is WKRP in
| Cincinnati. That show was set in a radio station and so there was
| a lot of music in it. As I understand it, that music was licensed
| for broadcast TV and so if you buy a DVD set or if a streamer
| licenses it, they swap out the music because the home video and
| streaming rights were never secured.
|
| Geoblocking feels like the same kind of problem. Things destined
| for a smaller audience pay less for licensing.
| zokier wrote:
| > Do you make it illegal for geographic regions to be part of a
| contract?
|
| Probably not:
|
| > It does not intend to adopt new legislative measures but
| relies on a joint commitment by the stakeholders.
| alkonaut wrote:
| It would be unthinkable to somehow outlaw "geographic
| licensing".
|
| Imagine how sports rights work. In country A there is a
| football league which people from country A are happy to pay
| $50 a month to watch. They can also consider watching the
| Country B league, but are only ready to pay $5 for that. In
| country B the situation is the opposite.
|
| If rights had to be sold at the same price, then the maximum
| you could charge is $5 for either league in either country. And
| if you could subscribe across borders with differing prices,
| then everyone in Country A would buy the subscription from
| Country B and save 90%.
| captaincaveman wrote:
| Exactly right, if you don't have clearance you either need to
| gain it (at a cost mostly) or you swap or edit it out.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| How is it licenced now? You make a song for a netflix show, and
| maybe 5k people see that episode, or that show becomes really
| popular and millions of people see that show.... do you get
| paid the same? Why would it make a difference if all of those
| people are US netflix subscribers, or if half of them are
| outside of US?
| mason55 wrote:
| It's not that you as the musician care, but your royalties
| are part of the overall fee that that broadcaster pays for
| rights to broadcast the content. Those fees differ based on
| the region because the broadcaster can make different amounts
| of money in each region.
|
| A broadcaster in a low GDP country is going to make less in
| absolute money than in a high GDP country. That translates
| into lower payouts for the musician.
|
| Something like Netflix where the content creator is also the
| global broadcaster is different but not all that much so.
| Netflix will get less in revenue from a subscriber in a low
| GDP territory and so will want to pay a smaller amount of
| money (same portion of the local pie) for those views.
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(page generated 2021-12-13 23:01 UTC)