Of course no one wants to upset US studios
Citation needed.
EU axes geo-blocking: Upsets studios, delights consumers
The European Parliament has approved a draft law that geo-blocking, the act of offering an online content service in one European Union (EU) country and that country alone, will be scrapped in the first half of next year. Coupled with the recent law to end mobile roaming charges in the EU as of next month, the OTT industry as …
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Monday 29th May 2017 10:37 GMT Mage
Axed Geoblocking
"if a consumer is signed up to Canal+ in France and travels to Germany, they will be able to access their TV Everywhere account. Which of course does not help Canal+ sell its content in Germany, but it is a step in the right direction towards consumer protection."
Yes it does.
And helps sell it in France.
People travel.
Sadly after 2019 this will not apply to UK.
In other news the "Evil" EU is having:
* Better refuge / asylum controls, though the UK problems (when May was Home Secretary) are NON-EU people, purely under UK Control.
* Better EU voice and Data Roaming
* Lower, harmonised parcel & letter prices within EU
* Action against predatory USA corporations exploiting privacy
* Better data protection.
Also loads of other good stuff that UK has often tried to block.
I've no sympathy for the USA and Sky (controlled by ex Australian USA Murdoch even without Fox take over). Their divide and exploit attitude (even extending to jeans, software and gadgets) is despicable. It was a COMMON Market before it was the EU.
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Monday 29th May 2017 11:22 GMT Dan 55
Re: Axed Geoblocking
I can see a flourishing local industry in VPN and SmartDNS services for the UK so expats can get at Doctor Who. *
Which will be paid for in a strong and stable currency, which may or may not be the GBP.
And will be monitored in realtime, of course.
* Unfortunately due to a data centre power failure, repeats of programs where the Doctor says, "Don't you think she looks tired?" will not be aired.
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Monday 29th May 2017 12:55 GMT streaky
Re: Axed Geoblocking
Sadly after 2019 this will not apply to UK.
Wouldn't get too excited. It prevents blocking within the union, it doesn't prevent the union itself being treated as a third class citizen by publishers and studios. Nor does it prevent studios refusing to release at all within the EU.
Also most UK providers already provide better roaming deals than the directive requires over a wider area than the EU, just by market forces (funny that).
Harmonised letters. Is this 1942?
+ They're not gonna touch the US on piracy.
Your data protection thing, have you even read the GDPR?
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Monday 29th May 2017 13:13 GMT Mephistro
Re: Axed Geoblocking
"It prevents blocking within the union, it doesn't prevent the union itself being treated as a third class citizen by publishers and studios. Nor does it prevent studios refusing to release at all within the EU."
Yep, the American content publishers will gladly lose 500 million people as potential customers, and give European content providers the upper hand in the EU.
</Sarc>
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Monday 29th May 2017 13:19 GMT streaky
Re: Axed Geoblocking
Yep, the American content publishers will gladly lose 500 million people as potential customers, and give European content providers the upper hand in the EU.
Nothing to stop them staging a demonstration and releasing a movie or five 4 months late or completely pulling a few that maybe they knew wouldn't do well just to make a point. I'm in no position to gauge their anger on this though - but hypothetically they could just say screw it for a whole bunch of content. When the UK leaves the EU there's going to be no native English speaking countries (past tiny markets anyway) in the EU and there's financial reasons alone why that could be a thing.
English speaking studios are going to I'd imagine rethink their approach to the EU market which could mean many things - but automatically assuming it's going to be good for consumers is extremely naive; do you even know who these guys are? It's probably going to cause all kinds of issues for EU based studios too.
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Monday 29th May 2017 23:01 GMT RegGuy1
Re: Axed Geoblocking
When the UK leaves the EU there's going to be no native English speaking countries
What? You think most of the EU don't speak or understand English? Have you been to Norway -- everyone speaks English; opps, not in the EU. Let me try again. Sweden, everyone I have ever met speaks English, normally in a clearer accent than my Lancashire one. Denmark -- I challenge you to find someone who can't speak English. Finland -- not everyone speaks English, but most do and even in the far north.
Hmm, what about other places I've been to? Germany, well in western Germany you can't practise German because the buggers keep pushing the conversation to English; I can in the more eastern districts. Poland, you will be surprised how many speak it there. I even met a Polish guy with a strong Geordy accent once. The Netherlands, I'm going to shay no more.
Moving further south. In Spain and Italy granted there are some who don't speak it, but amongst the young it is quite common. And if you go out to Turkey (ok not EU) in Istanbul everyone is young and everyone speaks Engilsh to some degree.
What I have I missed? Oh, France. Granted, English outside Paris is far less common, even amonst the young. But to suggest that English is not widely used in the EU is ridiculous. A meeting between a German, Fin and Italian will be in English.
And we are choosing to leave the EU. We are the idiots.
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Monday 29th May 2017 23:29 GMT Lars
Re: Axed Geoblocking
"When the UK leaves the EU there's going to be no native English speaking countries".
I would consider Ireland a country. Read about it here:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ei.html
Not that far from the UK either and there is an English colony too.
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Tuesday 30th May 2017 01:44 GMT Lars
Re: Axed Geoblocking
Hello Pompmpous Git,
I did provide a link:
"Languages:
English (official, the language generally used), Irish (Gaelic or Gaeilge) (official, spoken by approximately 38.7% of the population as a first or second language in 2011; mainly spoken in areas along the western coast)".
Perhaps I should have used the Joke Alert icon, still the "When the UK leaves the EU there's going to be no native English speaking countries" was rubbish all the same.
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Tuesday 30th May 2017 03:14 GMT Pompous Git
Re: Axed Geoblocking
Lars, native means "Belonging to, or natural to, one by reason of the place or country of one's birth, or of the nation to which one belongs." English is the native language of those born in England. In Ireland, English is the native language of the invaders. Confirmed by an Irish friend, accompanied by some very colourful language.
BTW, you might want to consider using the clipboard. It's Pompous, not "Pompmpous".
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Tuesday 30th May 2017 06:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
"English is the native language of the invaders"
Even in England... they didn't speak English before the Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions...
Anyway, the day Ireland stops using English as the main language, I guess most foreign business will move away, because Irish is not a language spoken by many, and regardless how much I like how it sounds in Irish songs, I don't believe I'm going to learn it.
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Tuesday 30th May 2017 07:53 GMT Pompous Git
Re: "English is the native language of the invaders"
"Even in England... they didn't speak English before the Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions..."
The inhabitants of England, southern and eastern Scotland most certainly spoke English prior to the Norman invasion. It's called Old English. After the Norman invasion, the court language was Norman French, but the vernacular was Middle English.There's no argument that the most common spoken language in Ireland is English and it's vanishingly unlikely to change. The problem arises when the claim is made that English is the native language of Ireland. Likely it will become so, but that time is not now when you can get a split lip and two black eyes for making such a claim.
Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla clíste.
Oh, and
Is minic a bhris béal duine a shrón.
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Monday 29th May 2017 14:09 GMT Len
Re: Axed Geoblocking
"Also most UK providers already provide better roaming deals than the directive requires over a wider area than the EU, just by market forces (funny that)."
Most UK providers have now implemented the EU rules and tried to sell it off as if they were being generous themselves.
Can you, however, point me to one UK provider that charged ZERO roaming costs within the EU a year ago? It has never been in their interest as roaming charges are an "in-transparent market" and thus not subject to typical competitive market forces. That is why an authority had to step in, the market wasn't working in this particular case.
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Monday 29th May 2017 18:49 GMT streaky
Re: Axed Geoblocking
Most UK providers have now implemented the EU rules and tried to sell it off as if they were being generous themselves.
Which is why they cover more than the EU. Sure.
Can't speak for the rest of the EU on competition, we were doing fine until BT were allowed to purchase EE - there's plenty of networks to go around. Problem with most people's plans is they expect the network to subsidise their phones for zero upfront.
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Tuesday 30th May 2017 12:02 GMT Cuddles
Re: Axed Geoblocking
"Can you, however, point me to one UK provider that charged ZERO roaming costs within the EU a year ago?"
Three. I don't think they actually quite covered the whole EU, but they did include a bunch of other countries including non-EU parts of Europe, the US and Australia, which is ultimately more useful for most consumers.
That said, it probably reinforces your point about not being subject to normal market forces. Three have constantly been screwed over by Ofcom, with the explicitly stated goal of keeping them a small upstart rather than being able to compete with the others on equal terms. Which sounds like a terrible idea for a regulator to openly endorse, but given that it forced Three to compete by finding ways to actually be nice to their customers, maybe it wasn't actually as stupid as it sounds.
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Monday 29th May 2017 21:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Axed Geoblocking
In other news the "Evil" EU is having:
* Better refuge / asylum controls, though the UK problems (when May was Home Secretary) are NON-EU people, purely under UK Control.
You do know that the UK is one of the most welcoming EU countries for refugees, accepting 23% of those who apply? Germany does slightly better, at 24%, the others trail: Italy 21%, France 18%, the Netherlands at 6% and Sweden (who gets an enormous number of applicants) only 2%.
* Lower, harmonised parcel & letter prices within EU
Since when? We gets lots of very late letters from the UK because people wrongly think that a 1st class stamp will work for any EU country, and I know for a fact that France has "internal" and "Europe" (note, not "EU") prices.
Also loads of other good stuff that UK has often tried to block.
The reverse is also true, the UK has much better consumer protection laws than the EU standard, for example.
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Monday 29th May 2017 11:55 GMT Richard 12
Re: So that's why
It's about about the sports for Sky.
Lots of people are willing to pay quite large sums of money so they can watch the sports they like, and this would have allowed them to pay somebody else for it instead.
I'll never understand it, but I'm glad they're having fun. And I wish they weren't forced to pay Murdoch for most of it.
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Monday 29th May 2017 10:45 GMT Mage
one common set of audiovisual rules across the EU
Logical extension of Broadcast sans frontier directive, though the slow death of MW & LW means EU radio (esp due to DAB) is getting more ghettoised.
I use multiple satellite receivers and the little "itrip" FM tx (CE marked) intended to connect MP3 / Phone to FM radio. The €4 ones run of 5V (PSU or USB) are fine. Then FM radio works anywhere in house.
Much less choice at night MW on car radio than used to be, and BBC R4 LW seems erratic power, few radios even have LW.
DAB radios are useless with often only 10 FM presets (not enough for local FM) and no AM.
Without decent broadband, using streaming is impossible, not practical in car. Erratic compared to FM, DAB, Satellite and AM.
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Monday 29th May 2017 11:37 GMT Paul Crawford
Re: one common set of audiovisual rules across the EU
"BBC R4 LW seems erratic power, few radios even have LW."
I think you can put that down to the shitty state of EMC enforcement where so much crap, including a lot of ISP-supplied broadband router/modems, etc, churn out noise in the whole lower frequency range (LW/MW/SW).
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Monday 29th May 2017 11:56 GMT H in The Hague
Re: one common set of audiovisual rules across the EU
"... and BBC R4 LW seems erratic power ..."
Oddly enough, en route from The Hague to the ferry terminal at Dunkerque or Calais I get excellent R4 LW reception on my car radio. Once I reach Dover LW reception is poor and I have to switch to R4 FM. (Another option would be to use Internet radio as many mobile phone contracts in NL now include large data bundles with roaming throughout the EU at no extra cost.)
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Monday 29th May 2017 11:43 GMT Paul Crawford
Re: hurting pirates
Some pirate simply because the can (or should I say, because they arrrrr!). This makes life fractionally easier for them.
Many pirate because they are pissed off being unable to pay for what they want to view because of where they live. For them this is a breath of sanity and will see many change to being paying customers. Assuming the suppliers don't fuck up and expect you to install silverlight or some other shitty software to access stuff, of course...
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Monday 29th May 2017 12:06 GMT Fibbles
Re: hurting pirates
Some pirate simply because the can
Many pirate because they are pissed off being unable to pay
I think you've got your adjectives the wrong way around there. If we're being realistic, most pirate because they don't want to pay for something when they can easily get it for free. While there are definitely some that pirate because of geoblocking, delayed regional releases and DRM, who then go on to later buy the product; for most its just a convenient excuse to try to legitimise their actions. The numbers of seeds doesn't suddenly drop to zero once a TV show has been released in all regions. I suspect that for many pirates there'll always be "just one last hurdle" that needs to be overcome before they'll pay for content.
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Monday 29th May 2017 22:28 GMT Pompous Git
Re: hurting pirates
"If we're being realistic, most pirate because they don't want to pay for something when they can easily get it for free."
That's most likely horseshit if music piracy is anything to go by. People who aren't into music don't pirate; nor do they purchase. Most who pirate a lot also purchase a lot. Because they are into music.It also depends on how you define "piracy". The music industry defines me as a pirate because every CD and LP I own has been ripped and is played from a computer. The DVDs I purchase are also ripped and played from the same computer so I can avoid watching annoying PGCs. Then there are the DVDs that mysteriously won't play, but can be ripped...
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Tuesday 30th May 2017 10:34 GMT Fibbles
Re: hurting pirates
Most who pirate a lot also purchase a lot.
If you say so. If they don't purchase what they pirate what difference does it make though?
If you only pay for half of what you consume that isn't somehow magically made OK because you also happen to consume a lot.
It also depends on how you define "piracy".
"We're all format shifters. Honest, gov!"
I highly doubt that. I can accept people are going to pirate even though they shouldn't. I just wish they'd stop inventing such bullshit excuses for doing so.
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Tuesday 30th May 2017 10:53 GMT Pompous Git
Re: hurting pirates
@ Fibbles
You are assuming we don't pay for what we pirate. As I pointed out in my post, we are by definition "pirates" when we format shift; therefore all that we paid for is "pirated".
It is certainly true that I don't pay for all that I "pirate" but that's because ever so much that I download isn't worth paying for. Storing in my system even is a cost that's excessive, so it's deleted. Much of this material is not available to listen to any other reasonable way. (My tastes are somewhat eclectic). I discover, through "piracy" what's worth spending my hard-earned on. I'm not about to purchase something I've never heard before.
FWIW there are ~2,500 titles in my collection almost all of them purchased. One of those titles, The Bach Collection consists of more than 120 CDs. Quite a few titles are duplicates: vinyl, CD, different covers... The people with the "bullshit excuses" are companies like Sony and their secret Rootkit that voided the warranty on my quite expensive CD player.
FWIW the music industry pissed me off so much with their bullshit that I now only purchase mainstream music second-hand. I do buy new from musicians selling their own material; they're cheaper and I know where the money is going.
BTW, it's considered quite bad form to invent quotes: "We're all format shifters. Honest, gov!" I never said that!
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Wednesday 31st May 2017 13:08 GMT Fibbles
Re: hurting pirates
As I pointed out in my post, we are by definition "pirates" when we format shift; therefore all that we paid for is "pirated".
While I'll admit the courts have confused the issue by bringing format shifting under the umbrella term of 'piracy' I doubt it is the definition most people would use. Piracy for myself, and I imagine most other people would be described as "obtaining copyrighted material you don't have a license for".
The idea that the masses of torrent sites exist mostly because of format shifters is ridiculous. As I said before, they exist because people want free shit.
You are assuming we don't pay for what we pirate.
It's a fairly valid assumption when you go on to say only a few lines later:
It is certainly true that I don't pay for all that I "pirate" but that's because ever so much that I download isn't worth paying for.
Another favourite shield excuse of the freetard. It completely ignores the fact that the value proposition of a movie, book, game, etc changes after the first use. Usually a film is worth less to the viewer on the second viewing because they already know what's going to happen. People are much less likely to pay for content they've already consumed, regardless of how much they enjoyed it the first time. That doesn't mean the first viewing shouldn't still be paid for.
The people with the "bullshit excuses" are companies like Sony and their secret Rootkit that voided the warranty on my quite expensive CD player.
That was over a decade ago. I remember at the time the bullshit excuse on this forum was along the lines of "if only they'd sell music without DRM, piracy would disappear". Publishers then went on to sell music without DRM. Lo and behold, piracy continued; almost as if the DRM argument was some sort of bullshit excuse to mask just wanting things for free.
As I said before, there'll always be some sort of flimsy excuse for piracy. People understandably want to take shit for free but they also want to feel morally justified whilst doing it. It doesn't matter the mental gymnastics involved to get to that point. For most pirates there'll always be "one last hurdle" before they pay for their content.
FWIW the music industry pissed me off so much with their bullshit that I now only purchase mainstream music second-hand. I do buy new from musicians selling their own material; they're cheaper and I know where the money is going.
That's some serious hipster nonsense right there. You'll only buy artisanal music sold by the musician themselves? So any form of production network suddenly makes them not worthy of your cash? Where do you draw the line? Anything other than individually burned CD-Rs in hand-drawn sleeves is the evil work of Big Music?
BTW, it's considered quite bad form to invent quotes
"Hurr Durr, I'm gonna treat a random internet forum like debate club and point out what I think are fallacies mostly because I can't tell the difference between a sarcastic but accurate summation of my point and a strawman. For my next trick I'm gonna nitpick about your grammatical errors before finally transforming into Spectacularly Refined Gent. Good day to you Sir!"
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Wednesday 31st May 2017 18:32 GMT Pompous Git
Re: hurting pirates
Fibbles, a freetard is "One who believes that downloadable text, images, music and other digital content should always be available free of charge, with wilful disregard of the resulting economic impact on the content creator or owner." Given that I have paid for all of the software in my possession (except for what was given to me legitimately) and own a music collection conservatively worth $AU25,000, you would appear to have a comprehension problem.
"That's some serious hipster nonsense right there. You'll only buy artisanal music sold by the musician themselves? So any form of production network suddenly makes them not worthy of your cash? Where do you draw the line? Anything other than individually burned CD-Rs in hand-drawn sleeves is the evil work of Big Music?"
On Sunday[*], I purchased three CDs from Dave Steel. This is one of them. Now there may be some virtue in spending £60.52 for Home is a Hard Thing to Find, it's likely worth it. After all, it was nominated for an Aria Award. But I don't have that kind of money and anyway Dave was happy to sell me a brand new copy for $AU20. If you decide to purchase Dave's CD, you will discover that it's most definitely not an "individually burned CD-R in hand-drawn sleeve". Nor were the two CDs by his wife Tiff Eckhardt that he also produced. They were pressed professionally here in Oz. In fact I can't think of any of the hundreds of CDs I've purchased direct that weren't.Maybe musicians where you live can't afford it. Or maybe you are just talking through your arse.
[*] One of my neighbours has a large hand-built stone house and several times a year they invite selected musicians to come and play for their friends — Haywood Mountain Billy Goats, Eric Bogle, Richard Gilewitz... We all throw money into a pot and that all goes to the musicians. We've been doing this kind of things for years. It used to be at Pat Zuber's place (she used to be Chris Blackwell's PA), but sadly she moved to Queensland.
PS I note that the music industry is attempting to make the sale of second-hand CDs illegal.
PPS I can recall when the music industry deleted fully a third of their back catalogue in an attempt to boost sales of new stuff. It didn't work and they blamed piracy for the consequent fall in revenue.
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Monday 29th May 2017 17:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: hurting pirates
Your putting too much sanity towards the content providers...
They take down their own free content on Youtube due to "region restrictions/publishing rights". That's right, the free site for videos, cannot show their free videos, if because they decide it's better to not show them... go figure.
So that free daily/weekly add/show snippet that gets a laugh, advertises their content, and draws people to their paid for services, is blocked in the UK, because it's a US show, made for the UK, and some other UK distributor bought rights (so they cannot even show the 5 min snippets anymore). Stranger is the US version IS up on youtube for all the world to see still. Oh, and the replacement uk service now gets uploads about once a month.
I really think they only know how to shoot themselves in the foot.
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Monday 29th May 2017 10:54 GMT Pascal Monett
"the removal of geo-blocking will weaken the financial value of content"
Bollocks.
The removal of geo-blocking will allow people who want to follow something to subscribe to it (and pay their dues) whatever the origin country is.
Are you trying to make me believe that you prefer the hassle of translating and localizing what people are ready to sign up for without ? Since when does that happen in a "capitalist" society ?
The Internet is here, now. Stop trying to keep us in the last millennium with your profoundly stupid "zones" that only serve to force people to buy movies from their own zone or pirate their optical readers because you willingly delay publication following arbitrary rules that have no more meaning today.
Who cares where a subscriber is as long as he is paying his subscription ?
Once again, thank God for the EU. It has its faults, but they are regularly outweighed by consumer-protecting acts like this one.
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Monday 29th May 2017 14:45 GMT inmypjs
Re: "the removal of geo-blocking will weaken the financial value of content"
"where a subscriber is as long as he is paying his subscription "
Because a Romanian subscriber can't afford and won't pay nearly as much as a German or French one That is the whole fucking point of geoblocking.
Prices in Romania are lower because a lower price gives providers most return there. A single EU price (which is not what this directive provides but what the dumb arse EU would like) means fewer Romanians will consume media and the ones that do will have to pay more. The providers make less money in Romania and have to hike prices elsewhere. Fewer people get to consume the available media and all those that do get to pay more for it - brilliant. "Thank god for the EU", you fucking moron.
Of course in 20 years time when the whole EU is as poor as Romania (unless including the likes of Turkey and Ukraine makes it take longer) a single price will be fine. That is the EU technocrats wet dream, them controlling an enormous homogeneous mass of people dumb enough to think they need technocrats to tell them what is good for them.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
