EU Commission Divided Over Nation-Specific Content Blocking 57
jfruh writes In theory, the European Union is supposed to act as a single national market. But one area in which practice doesn't live up to theory is geoblocking: Europeans may find that a website they can reach or content they have a legal right to stream in one EU country is blocked in another. Now two members of the EU Commission (the equivalent of a nation's cabinet) are feuding as to whether geoblocks should be eliminated: Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said that "deep in my heart ... I hate geoblocking," while Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Günther Oettinger, worrying about protecting the European film industry, said "We must not throw the baby out with the bathwater."
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Do explain the irony, as there is none from any educated person's point of view.
The only thing there is, is a clear demonstration of utter ignorance on part of anyone finding any irony in the headline, because that would imply they think EU is a nation, rather than a union of nations each of which has its own interests.
As the name itself, European UNION suggests.
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The irony is that the EU was intended to create a **Single** market for goods and services. Geoblocking, especially at a national or regional scale, should be anathema to the EU.
Re: Plus Article 10 (Score:1)
On top of that there is also Article 10 of the ECHR "Freedom of Expression". Whilst the European Convention on Human Rights is separate to the EU, it is mandatory for all EU members to also regard the Articles of the Convention as binding and effectively a Constitution for all EU member nations. It is ironic that different nations interpret Article 10 differently and thus "Expression" which is legal in one EU member can be illegal in another. Other Articles may also come into play too (Privacy, Association,
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Partially correct. But "intended to create" does not mean "successfully created", nor does it mean "universal free market for everything".
There is no irony here, unless you find that anything that is "in progress" is "ironic". In which case you need a dictionary.
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And this demonstrates the utter ignorance of EU. EU is a carefully defined political construct. Only an utter idiot would suggest literal interpretation of the word "union" when talking about "European Union". It's extremely obvious that member states are not united politically, nor economically.
But I suppose I should not expect even basic intelligence from someone who uses "get wreked, twit" as a finisher for his rambling.
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Sort of like the United in the states of America then?
At last union means the intersect of bits that correspond. United is "all for one and one for all"?
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Unfortunately it also means the combination of the whole of the distinct sets. Combine them all. You expect no internal disagreements? There were internal disagreements before the Union. It would be worrying for everyone around the world if the EU turned into a single borg mind.
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Because the United States are always in agreement...
Re:Ironic headline (Score:4, Funny)
And the Belgians are waffling.
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Geoblocking (Score:3)
"Geoblocking" is just a tech-specific euphemism for "muzzling content we don't want you to see."
As such, it is entirely disrespectful, specifically in that it attempts to deny people the ability to make their own choices. It is a direct manifestation of "we know better than you what you should be able to see, read, listen to, and use."
This is about personal agency. Part of that WRT to network access is -- should be -- the choice to implement boundaries of your own using the appropriate tools. Of which there
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Sorry, I thought I had been clear.
I wasn't talking about regional control of distribution by publishers, I was talking about arbitrary interference with materials intended for the end user, where the end user is interfered with by bad actors, most notably, government busybodies.
I own a literary agency and deal with copyright and regional issues a great deal more often, and in more ways, than most people. But that isn't what I was talking about, as it seems like a non-issue to me -- as long as we have nation
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I'm from the Czech republic. The copyright laws around here are somewhat saner than in the West - to simplify, it's perfectly legal to download "audiovisual works" (movies, pictures, books, audio...), it's just not legal to share it. (Software is treated differently). It's not much, but it's paradise compared to the clusterfuck that is the US and western Europe, as far as I know.
If the EU (or European Comission, or whichever else bureaucratic body) forbids geoblocking, there will suddenly be massive pressur
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It is the demon child. It can only be exorcised through the sacrament of holy circumvention.
I dunno...maybe you could check the LAW? (Score:1)
>> Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said that "deep in my heart ... I hate geoblocking,"
What is this crap? "Search your feelings?" How about checking to see what the law says?
>> Günther Oettinger, worrying about protecting the European film industry
Protecting the what? Bah ha ha ha, er, yes, I'm certain there is a "European file industry." (Cough.)
>> "We must not throw the baby out with the bathwater."
Sorry, but you already did when you created
Re:I dunno...maybe you could check the LAW? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not as simple as you think.
The argument against a factual one rooted in reality - European movie making is a fairly small business, but important for each local culture. And they do indeed need protection to survive, because they are not commercially as strong as the big players who tend to dominate. And big players are well known for making deals that would destroy local movie makers by squeezing their money flows.
This isn't so much of a "feud" as beginning in the standard process of European decision making. That is seeking consensus between "common digital market" and "how do we keep our cultural producers alive in a world where their output is increasingly important to national identity".
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It's exceptionally obvious that national cinema we're talking about is not "major studio movies shot in European locations".
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Protecting the what? Bah ha ha ha, er, yes, I'm certain there is a "European film industry." (Cough.)
James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc etc ;) All mostly filmed in the UK.
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James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc etc ;) All mostly filmed in the UK.
Ah yes, the UK. Where they kill the one goose that lays golden eggs. I believe his name was Clarkson.
Bring
Back
Clarkson.
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Protecting the what?
Ignoramus, most Hollywood films are not made in Hollywood studios, they're not even made in the US.
How is limiting your market protection? (Score:3)
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Clearly. Geoblocking is at least partially about market segmentation. The EU is so large that it has extremely major disparities in wealth between its member nations. Consider the difference between Sweden and Romania. If you have a movie and charge a single price to stream it across the entire EU then:
a) Some people will find it incredibly cheap and others will find it still too expensive, just pushing them back towards piracy.
b) You end up having to deal with the tax
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It is not just the disparity in wealth. Removal of geo-blocking is also about ensuring that content is available for download/streaming/viewing throughout the EU, and not just restricted to certain countries.
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Clearly. Geoblocking is at least partially about market segmentation. The EU is so large that it has extremely major disparities in wealth between its member nations. Consider the difference between Sweden and Romania. If you have a movie and charge a single price to stream it across the entire EU then:
a) Some people will find it incredibly cheap and others will find it still too expensive, just pushing them back towards piracy.
I suppose this is slashdot and I should expect any reponse to my inital post to be condesending, well done. You wanted an argument, this is abuse [youtube.com]
Keeping things geo-locked pushes people to piracy. Drop the locks and at least the portion of the population that want to pay either for content or convience can do so. Geolocking doesn't stop those that will pirate, it stops those that will not from paying.
b) You end up having to deal with the tax systems of every single EU country anyway due to the retarded VAT changes they introduced this year, so it doesn't help simplify your business at all, and you theoretically aren't allowed to opt out of serving particular regions due to their horrible paperwork requirements, so being able to geoblock unprofitably complicated regions whilst claiming you have some other reason is quite attractive.
If we are assuming the basics of captialism hold here and there is a sufficiently sized market, the reg
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I think the Romainan interest in Swedish movie is totally nonexistent. Your market is your cultural neighbors.
Swedish movie is interesting for Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark. If it is unusually good (rare) then add Germany. I don't see any problems having one price for Swedish movies in these countries. Actually - us Swedes are the poorest of them. So we should do the complaining then.
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I think the concern is that it would benefit the big guys at the expense of the little guys. Will the huge entertainment businesses of the UK overwhelm the many, much smaller, businesses in other countries? Maybe.
I say eliminate the barriers and see what happens. You can always put them back up again if your citizens want them back up.
Geoblocking only affects few people (Score:1)
stop doing stupid shit with VAT then (Score:5, Interesting)
At the start of this year VAT changed so that for digital online sales the place of supply is where the consumer belongs. This means if you sell an app/ebook/knitting pattern/recipe/tune then you have to collect two bits of non-conflicting evidence of the place of belonging of the consumer, then figure out which of the 70 or so rates of VAT across 27 countries applies for the specific product (several have special ebook rates) then you add VAT to the price and remit it to HMRC through the mini one stop shop (VATMOSS). There is no threshold for this and you can get penalties each quarter from 27 different countries if you get it wrong. Or, you can geoblock and say "screw you, I can't cope with this shit." to potential customers outside the UK.
Geoblocking is about the only sane response to VATMOSS.
EU Commission is not equivalent to cabinet (Score:1)
"EU Commission (the equivalent of a nation's cabinet)"
The cabinet in the nation where i live is a coalition of elected representatives, and is part of the Parliament.
The EU Parliament does consist of elected representatives, the EU Commission does not. It is separate from the Parliament and it consists of people elected by a commission of people who have been appointed by heads of state. That is at best a form of democracy like they had in ancient Rome, where democracy was only for the elites.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Translation: (Score:1)
deep in my heart ... I hate geoblocking
Translation: I've not received enough bribes on that subject yet.