'I don't NEED to pay' to watch football, thunders EU digi-czar Europe’s new digital chief’s passion for ending geo-blocking has been explained: he’s missing out on his beloved Estonian football. The European Commission’s VP for the digital economy and former Estonian prime minister, Andrus Ansip, has reiterated his determination to end so-called geo-blocking in every speech he has made …
Cricket on the radio is positively dangerous for driving:
My memory goes back to the days of the first shirt pocket sized transistor radios in the early '60s my cricket fan mates listening to John Arlott being poetic about googlies being slipped to silly mid on (or something like that). On a lunch hour at school in the summer, the sound of a cricket commentary was the best way to get in forty winks before going back to sleep inducing lessons.
I watch without paying. You can usually find another non UK channel either broadcasting via the internet or a satellite. OK, the commentary might be in Russian or Spanish or Chinese but the pleasures of watching it (legally) without getting the Murdoch tax lubricant out and bending over are well worth it.
Mind you, if I'd paid for Estomian football, I'd bloody well want to watch it wherever I was and sod what my IP address was. Having spent the last week fighting with "online" banking I can well understand the frustrations of 21st century expectations meeting 20th business models.
ooh, ooh, mods whilst we're at it, can we get shot of those "loud" adverts. When you've got umpteen tabs open and your laptop starts giving you the full surround sound experience it is bloody annoying.
... which actually made impossible to see contents you paid for if you moved to another "region". All these regulations are there to ensure media companies can maximize their revenues against honest customers. Dishonest ones have no problem to watch pirated contents...
We are.
That's the whole point of free movement of goods across the EU.
Nabbed from the European Commission Website:
"One of the “four freedoms” of the Single Market is the free movement of goods. Member States may restrict the free movement of goods only in exceptional cases, for example when there is a risk resulting from issues such as public health, environment, or consumer protection."
If you followed the link at the bottom of the article, it's this EU law that scuppered the conviction of the Pub Landlady and opened up the floodgates for every pub in the land to have Irish Setanta Sports for the 3pm Premier League games that Sky and BT Sports cannot show. Simply speaking, it is illegal to stop Setanta Ireland (and Sky Italia etc...) from selling their product wherever the hell they want in the EU.
What The Robot is actually saying is "I bought the rights to this content in Estonia from $TVCompany* that means, if $TVCompany want to provide me the goods, in this case a subscription, in Belgium, they're entitled to by law."
* Yes this still applies if it's a State owned or tax funded TV Company. Over here the BBC sell me the content by way of the TV License, even if it's a non-negotiable TV Tax levied in law.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
