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EU Entertainment

EU Lawmakers To Push Audio-Visual Sector on Geoblocking (techcrunch.com) 45

European Union lawmakers are considering whether current rules aimed at limiting the practice of geoblocking across the bloc should be extended to cover access to streaming audio-visual content. From a report: Access to services like Netflix tends to be gated to individual EU Member States, meaning Europeans can be barred from accessing libraries of content offered elsewhere in the region. So if you're trying to use your Netflix subscription to access the service after moving to another Member State, or want to access inventory offered by Netflix elsewhere in Europe, the answer is typically a big fat no, as we've reported before. This undermines the core concept of the EU's Single Market (and the Digital Single Market -- aka the frictionless ecommerce end-goal which rules such as those limiting geoblocking aim to deliver). The Commission is alive to ongoing issues around online access to audio-visual content. In a review of the two-year-old Geo-blocking Regulation published today, it says it will kick off discussions with the audiovisual sector on ways to improve consumer access to this type of copyrighted content across the bloc.
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EU Lawmakers To Push Audio-Visual Sector on Geoblocking

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  • by Ryanrule ( 1657199 ) on Monday November 30, 2020 @09:22AM (#60778108)
    Lots of requirements for certain amounts of local produced content. How can they allow ALL content and yet maintain they correct ratios???
    • Why was this modded down? It is actually a fair point, even if I tend to agree that geoblocking is a bad thing.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Just add more local content.

      In practice though the local content rules will probably just get updated to reflect these changes. Remember that the EU can't make laws, those are made by individual countries. So when say Spain makes a new law implementing the EU directive they will just have it update the locally produced content rule to account for the increased total amount of content that Netflix has to offer.

      • by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Monday November 30, 2020 @11:11AM (#60778532)

        Just add more local content.

        The point being made is that with the way the laws are currently constructed you can't "just add more local content" to solve the problem. Right now, a number of member states have laws requiring that X%—typically 10-30% if I recall correctly—of the service's library must be locally produced, which is only possible because each nation's library is considered independently of the others. Were they to switch to a single, shared library of content, it wouldn't be mathematically possible for dozens of nations to each receive the double-digit percentage of representation that they require today. E.g. If France, Poland, Slovakia, and Spain each require that 30% of a streaming service's catalog come from their respective nations, it would be literally impossible for that service to comply in a single market scenario.

        So, yes, the "local content rules will need to be updated to reflect the changes", but even if these member states were to reduce the percent required, it wouldn't change that 100% is still as high as any service can go in total, so we're talking about a zero-sum game in which any percent required by one country must necessarily come at the expense of the others. With 27 member nations, even just 4% each would exceed what is mathematically possible, and yet if just 4% of the catalog were in, say, French, I suspect France would be none too happy that 96% of the catalog was in other languages and from other cultures (I'm picking on France here because of their well established penchant for protecting their language and culture).

        Alternatively, countries could switch from a proportional representation to a quantitative representation, but that comes with its own headaches. If you write a law that says streaming services must offer, say, 10,000 hours of content in your country's language in order to operate in your country, that might be a drop in the bucket for a company like Netflix, but you'd have just prevented local streaming services from ever getting off the ground in your country. Requiring a minimum quantity of content for any new entrants would have a chilling effect on the industry, thus entrenching the incumbents or ensuring that the only companies capable of satisfying it are the ones who start elsewhere and are able to build up massive catalogs before entering your country.

        I'm not saying it's impossible or a bad idea to implement a single market across the EU—far from it—but I am saying that it would take careful consideration and is quite a bit more complicated than your "just add more local content" suggestion would have us believe.

        • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          Under a single market, "local content" would be "any content from the single market" therefore it shouldn't be a problem at all. Foreign content would be anything produced outside of the single market.

          • Under a single market, "local content" would be "any content from the single market"

            That may well be the case. I don't know enough to say.

            therefore it shouldn't be a problem at all.

            This statement does not follow from the previous. I sincerely doubt that France or the other countries with laws already on the books designed to protect their languages and cultures when it comes to streaming services would be happy to go along with this idea. If what you're saying is true, it would put local content producers in direct competition with major centers for filmmaking (e.g. Prague, which has worked in tandem with Hollywood for years, hence

            • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

              People in a given country will generally prefer to consume content in their own language as it's easier and more comfortable. Many people (myself included) cannot stand dubbing, and subtitles distract you from the actual action.

              • I really don't see how your post addresses the problem I'm raising.

                My entire point was that it's far more difficult than AmiMoJo was suggesting to craft laws that simultaneously grant access to all content as a single market while also protecting one's culture. I agree that people "generally prefer to consume content in their own language" (at least in the short term), but that statement is merely a way of putting your head in the sand by ignoring the need to protect one's culture that many of these countri

          • Imagine if every State in the USA required a provider (like Netflix) to have 10% of the catalog produced in that State. You wouldn't be able to offer a single Nationwide catalog, you'd have to do it State by State or maybe a few States grouped together. California wouldn't really notice much of a difference, but places where very little is Produced would have extremely small catalogs in order to keep the ratios in line, and a lot of major content would be unavailable.

            This is essentially the situation you e

          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            Under a single market, "local content" would be "any content from the single market" therefore it shouldn't be a problem at all. Foreign content would be anything produced outside of the single market.

            That would still require individual governments to ratify that, since the laws are usually "X% of content must be produced in France" or "Y% must feature German landmarks". Each country will have to decide it.

            It also comes down to copyright laws itself - some countries have censorship laws that require certain

        • One of the issues with Netflix, and a number of US based content companies, is that they don't do a good job of allowing you to search for movies or music based on a specific region. It is usually comes down to local, US content, not-local.

          If Netflix normalised their pricing across the EU and made their content pan-European (pan-EU here), to the point where you can select content based on language and region, it would be a huge improvement. This way if I am Italian, but in France, but can I still get access

          • Sounds like a good chance for a region specific company to form. Franco-Flix, Spanard-Flix, etc. Why does everyone need to go to netflix again?

            • Sounds like a good chance for a region specific company to form. Franco-Flix, Spanard-Flix, etc. Why does everyone need to go to netflix again?

              Euroflix would be better. People should get to watch things in their language, no matter which EU country they are in.

    • Requirements for "local" content apply to public broadcasters, not people watching Netflix etc.

      There is a case to be made for both banning local geoblocks (it is a form of market distortion) and for leaving them alone (complicated licensing issues), but this has very little to do with "local" requirements.

      • Forget that - OP was referring to "local content" requirements on streaming services, which is a valid point indeed. Note to self, read more carefully.
    • Lots of requirements for certain amounts of local produced content. How can they allow ALL content and yet maintain they correct ratios???

      I believe those restrictions are tied to broadcasting licences and I don't think web only needs those (this would be regulated at the country level so it might be wrong on that in some member states).

    • by U0K ( 6195040 )
      Are there any source on how that would be mutually exclusive with restricting geo-blocking?

      I know only of France who demands that a certain ratio of domestically produced music in their broadcasts. That is due to a long standing linguistic nationalism in France they take pride in. But that's not true for many other countries in Europe.

      Doing some research on the matter I only found that there's a pressure to comply to some proposal to have at least 20% of EU content. Now that is still a stupid thing in m
    • How can they allow ALL content and yet maintain they correct ratios???

      My guess is that they'll modify the old law as they do this. The old law said, "30% had to be local", my guess is the new law will say "30% has to be EU (possibly subdivided among EU countries)".

      Or maybe the new law will say if you pay for Netflix France, you can still access it in Germany (which is the use case they describe), so it's 30% French, 70% whatever Netflix shows in France. Maybe if you sign up for Netflix EU, you get to ch

      • the local content laws are at a national level. e.g. France has specific local content laws.
        The 'no geoblocking' law would be at an EU level.

        The EU would have to come up a rule regarding local content that was consistent with the no geoblocking. Possibly xx % EU content, possibly 'show what you like'.
        Of course, they'd have to go to battle with France and perhaps others if they were to over-ride the existing national laws.

    • It's an attempt to manufacture a Catch-22 situation, they want to be able to fine US companies for not allowing access while also fining them for allowing too much access.
    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      They can't. That will have to be a part of national regulation to be relaxed, or "content from within EU" will have to at least partially replace "content from France" in legal formulations.

  • I hope they can succeed at unwinding the years and years of exclusive content local contracts that the industry has. For example company "A" has the exclusive rights to show "1" in say Spain, while company "B" has the exclusive rights to show "1" in say France. It is a morass. Clearly Netflix hates the existing setup - they have to negotiate rights to the same title with multiple, regional rights holders. And of course if the commission issues rules without taking the existing landscape into account (say a
    • I mean, it's kinda trivial to unwind complex legal things if you write the laws.

      p>Alternatively, they could make it so you could log into "Netflix - France" from anywhere in the EU. That would be even better, because then Netflix and Amazon could each have exclusive rights to "A" in essence throughout the EU. The value of country specific exclusive rights would crash, and we'd get more streaming competition.

    • And of course if the commission issues rules without taking the existing landscape into account (say a rule that says "streaming titles must be the same across the EU" without anything to force a central rights clearing house or the like) the result becomes that the titles will be reduced greatly to whatever set can easily be done across the whole EU.

      A law like this means owners of territorial exclusive licenses would no longer be able to exploit their licenses anywhere in the Union. This would encourage these firms to set up a private-sector rights clearinghouse in order to be able to collect any royalty greater than zero.

  • People are using VPNs in droves to circumvent that and so they can't spy as easily on them.

  • Good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by martynhare ( 7125343 ) on Monday November 30, 2020 @10:02AM (#60778280)
    I'm pro-Brexit and there's a lot to criticise the EU for but this isn't it. Country-level georestrictions and targeting discounts based upon other protected characteristics are not the hallmarks of a free market. Seller-side market freedom, including the "the right to refuse a sale" does not take precedence over buyer-side market freedom to not be illegally discriminated against. This applies even more strongly when every country in your bloc is using a single, unified currency and is thus one large/unified economy.

    For example: Why should Germans pay €8 for identical (English undubbed/unsubbed) movies which Polish people only pay €4 for? If you want to sell to a greater pool of customers then lower your prices, if you can maximise profits selling to a more upmarket audience, then keep your prices high. It's that simple.

    Globalisation is a double-edged sword and companies will have to live with the consequences of the mess they have created through their tremendous greed.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I'd get YouTube Premium if they offered it at a reasonable price. In Russia it's less than £2/month, in the UK it's over 6x more expensive and I don't want most of the stuff it comes with.

      Some people get the Russian price using a VPN but I'm not going to risk my Google account as I use it for email.

    • Why should Germans pay â8 for identical (English undubbed/unsubbed) movies which Polish people only pay â4 for?

      I mean, it gets more revenue for the selling company, that's why. Price discrimination does that. Same reason a gold plated iPhone has (or at one point, had) an extra 0 on it to charge the rich more.

      But, more to the point, why should Polish people (who make significantly less money) not be able to watch movies? I wouldn't expect everyone in the US to pay the astronomical rent in SF or

      • (Actually, I do RTFA): As you've asked, here's my viewpoint, put in as succinct way as I possibly can.

        I am fundamentally in favour of globalisation, where the basic human values we all hold in common are recognised in a consistent, homogenous way, while still allowing cultural traditions to be mutually respected. This extends to legal systems, methods of trading, the whole shebang. However, the EU does not support globalisation or even offer the promised representation of individual citizens. The closes
        • I'm unfamiliar with your usage of "government" and "civil service", and therefore unable to really understand your objection. To my knowledge, the civil service is an unelected part of government, normally under the executive branch, that remains in place regardless of election results and exists to implement the directives from on high and literally make sure trains run on time and other stuff that has to happen. Or, more accurately, the vast majority of the NHS, in my understanding, would be part of th

    • Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)

      by RDW ( 41497 ) on Monday November 30, 2020 @10:41AM (#60778438)

      Brexit is a double-edged sword up the arse and the UK will have to live with the consequences of the mess its supporters have created through their tremendous spite, xenophobia and petty nationalism.

  • So why is it legal? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday November 30, 2020 @10:04AM (#60778286) Homepage Journal

    This undermines the core concept of the EU's Single Market (and the Digital Single Market -- aka the frictionless ecommerce end-goal which rules such as those limiting geoblocking aim to deliver).

    So make geoblocking illegal already. Or at least, make it illegal to use it to restrict "products" (real or imaginary) to subsets of the EU. Otherwise nobody should believe in your "end goal".

  • it's call Bittorrent. no geofencing ever, a far vaster library of media, and the prices are extremely competitive!

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