European Commission Proposes "Digital Single Market" and End To Geoblocking

An anonymous reader writes A new initiative from the European Commission proposes a reformed "single digital market", addressing a number of issues that it sees as obstructions to EU growth, including geoblocking — where services such as BBC's iPlayer are only available to IP addresses within the host country — and the high cost of parcel delivery and administration of disparate VAT rates across the member states. The ramifications of many of the proposals within the Digital Single Market project extend to non-EU corporations which have built their business model on the current isolationism of member state markets.

Comments

Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

So many european special interests are invested in protectionist strategies that they're not going to let it go away. They are just going to do the same thing by different names.

And if they actually did do it, they'd open europe up to competition not just internationally but even within europe. There are a lot of countries in europe that are not able to export their gods to other countries in europe for basically no reason. And that has been getting worse with the EU... not better.

Re:Never going to happen

[chrisvdb]

> And that has been getting worse with the EU... not better.

Can you give me some examples? Our family business has been importing and exporting goods (motor vehicles) from all over Europe for over 40 years, and I can tell you that things have improved GREATLY because of the European union. Just to give you an idea, when the business just started a motor vehicle imported from for example Italy could not be registered in other European countries without making alterations because regulations were so different. In addition all the paperwork that was required would easily take up several hours per vehicle im/exported.

Re: Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Not being able to find a particular German wine here in the UK, I ordered it online from a German company. It arrived 3 days later. Carriage cost £6, and no duty to pay as the price included German taxes. European Union in action.

Try doing that in the USA. In many States it's illegal to import wine across state boundaries, never mind international ones.

Re: Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

What? I've never had that problem. I do shipping all over the country all the time and while I am assuming you're referring to some weird ATF thing... it has never effected me once.

Ironically, things are often easier if I cross lines with something rather than not... sales taxes for example often vanish which is convenient.

I recently bought a laptop that I bounced between three different states and the result was... no sales tax.

Really, suggesting that internal US shipping is more complicated and expensive then internal EU shipping is just absurd. Give me a better example please because I don't think that is a credible argument.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

The italian olive oil situation is a good example.

There are olive groves there that have been supplying oil to local villages as well as exporting for time out of mind. And new EU regulations are requiring that the oil go through all sorts of additional regulatory steps as well as package it in specific EU approved bottles.

The people in the area would typically just come by with a jug and fill it up with fresh oil as needed. But that is being made illegal.

The result is that the small growers must sell not directly to customers but to a big business bottling plants that are ultimately going to be the only legal way to sell the oil. Importing and exporting the oil previously was also not a big deal... but again, regulations.

Can I ask what country you are based in? Because the worst effects of this stuff hit the poorer and less developed countries the hardest. The richer and more developed countries if anything benefit from it. The trade controls have consequences for segments of the economy less capable of dealing with the red tape.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Olive oil is a special case, it's no longer the pure product of old, it's being tampered with and may be up to 10% something else. That's what you get when you try to deceive customers, backlash and additional regulations. If the producers remained honest, legislation would not have turned to look at the industry.

Re:Never going to happen

[thegarbz]

That's the thing about harmonisation of disperse markets, for every simple example of a drawback someone will come up with an example of an improvement. Regulations typically don't just magically appear, but are rather a reaction (often a knee jerk reaction) to a specific problem. Your example is good because it highlights some serious issues at both sides. For instance the increased overhead now placed on farmers, but at the same time the increased assurance placed on the customers and the government that everything is done as it should be. I.e. you know the bottle was cleaned properly before you used it, the government knows the measured quantity of goods changing hands for taxation purposes. The poor may be hard done, but they are also the ones reasonably protected.

Now this may or may not be the case here, but in a general sense this is where these ideas often come from.

Re:Never going to happen

[Skidborg]

Or major producers are using lobbying for regulation as an opportunity to shut down smaller businesses, like they do in every industry all over the world.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Greek i know about olive oil (even the Italian... since much of it is actually Greek; wholesale imported bulk in Italy to be botlled in a nice way and exported worldwide!).
Your example is not good because trading in retail unbottled (bulk) olive oil is illegal (for very good reasons) in EU as it is in Italy and Greece - once bottled can be traded freely in EU.

Re: Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently bought a laptop that I bounced between three different states and the result was... no sales tax.

Ah, so you're a tax evader... Thief!

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

This is specifically for digital goods, which should make it a lot easier.

I still agree with you though, this is never going to happen.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

A consentual system of standards would suit both situations.

That is... if you obey these rules you can put this symbol on your package. If you don't then you can't.

Then the consumer decides whether they care or not.

Everyone gets what they want.

Those that want those standards will look for that symbol and only buy products that meet it.

Customers that do not will choose indifferent to whether it is there or not.

And neither big companies nor small companies can complain or gain any advantage.

That is the power of the free market.

It gives everyone what they deserve and dynamically can respond to any situation because it relies on personal human judgement at every juncture.

No mechanized system can compete with it. You're pitting the minds of perhaps a few hundred specialists against BILLIONS of minds of people that will work on the issues not just once but every day and forever.

The problem with these regulations is that they are needlessly restrictive.

I believe the regulations went so far as to suggest that it would be illegal to even put the legally bought oil into a non-legal container... which would be anything besides what it was sold in. So if you wanted to put your oil in a nice looking glass beaker that would be illegal. You'd have to keep it in some sort of bottle that the company sold it in... never mind that that would be comparatively ugly.

I believe they've moderated a lot of these rules. I don't know how many of them still stand. But the point is that these regulations all come from a certain perspective.

In the case of the EU, that would be Brussels. And what makes sense in Brussels is not what is going to make sense in Greece or Denmark.

To regulate a territory of that span you need a more federated policy that grants member states the autonomy to achieve the SPIRIT of the law rather than the letter of the law.

After all, the spirit is actually what matters. The letter is relevant only so far as a court trial where one person or another tries to argue they were obeying when they quite obviously were not.

If you fill out all the paper work, go through the whole procedure and then still find a way to poison people... am I happy? Obviously not... people are poisoned. If you generally ignore the law and yet otherwise act in a completely ethical way where no one is hurt am I happy? Yep. I can't see why I'd have grounds to complain really if no one is getting hurt.

And that's how the EU should be structured. These regulations should be more guiding principles of behavior and conduct rather than very specific regulations that say things must be done in this way and no other.

What is more, such a system would be much more comprehensible since instead of ENDLESS pages of ultra specific regulations you'd have a much more summarized code that simply explains the objective, cautions against some things that have to be dealt with, an admonition that if there are problems that would be embarrassing for whomever is in charge.

This is in effect how a great deal of the EU already works. The member states are permitted to make most of their own laws and manage their own internal affairs. However, member nations are expected to hold to certain moral and ethical codes. You can't go randomly executing people for example and remain in good standing with the EU though I suspect there isn't a specific regulation that says you can't do that. And even if there were, it would be redundant since it wouldn't be tolerated.

Trying to manage so many cultures and languages as if they're all a single city being run by a city council is naive. A certain amount of flexibility must be allowed.

Now here you might say "but why must I permit someone's products into my country if they're not following procedures I feel are sufficient?" Well, do your people agree or is that just "you"? Because if your people agree then those products won't sell. And if they don't agree with you then they will. So... what exactly is

Re:Never going to happen

[rioki]

Because the worst effects of this stuff hit the poorer and less developed countries the hardest. The richer and more developed countries if anything benefit from it.

Although I understand the sentiment; the "richer" countries, e.g. Germany, already works with these "food safety" measures in place. They have had this drag on the marked already in place, so they did not need to adapt. The problem is when a new EU directive actually kills traditional products; like in France where the requirement to make cheese with pasteurized milk made something like 3/4 of the French cheeses impossible to make. (They resolved the issue with local exemptions.)

But once you comply with "improved" food and product safety requirements, the EU did help trade.

Re:Never going to happen

[rioki]

In this specific case, I would rather think that the northern countries, especially Germany, wanted that their food safety regulations to also apply to the southern countries. "Somebody think of our poor consumers?" (They don't make olive oil in mid and northern Europe.)

Re:Never going to happen

[thsths]

Actually the EU has done that, for example with the eco label.

However, it turned out that typical white goods with an eco label below A would not sell in Germany, so they are no longer available. No consumer choice there. In other countries, consumer standards are different, and therefore it may be very difficult to sell or to find a highly efficient device. Again, little consumer choice.

So the result was that different countries would informally set different standard - exactly what the common market was trying to avoid. Regulation would be more efficient and provide better consumer choice (everybody can get the same efficient devices).

Re: Never going to happen

[rioki]

Yea, that interstate commerce -> no sales tax thing in the US never made sense to either.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Agriculture is hit similarly in the most rich countries as well. The difference might be that some of these countries already have many rules in place, making in difficult or impossible for a farmer to directly sell to consumers. Then there are the retail chains and their control of the distribution channels, but that's a different story.

Re:Never going to happen

[nospam007]

"The people in the area would typically just come by with a jug and fill it up with fresh oil as needed. But that is being made illegal."

That's just because a lot of them gave the people oil from the year before last, or mixed that one with fresh oil.
It's their own fault this had to come.

Not to mention the unsanitary oil bottles on the restaurant tables that got filled with the same crap. Also the bottles were never cleaned in years!

That's why those practices got illegal. You can still put bottles on the tables, but they have to be labeled with the date and provenance and must be un-refillable.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

this happens becouse there's an huge invasion of fake olive oil (often with non-edible oils in it) on the market and EU is struggling to fight it.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

when you find lampant oil (refined oil not for uman use) mixed with your olive oil in huge quantities you would start asking for stricter rules too.
olive oil market has become a cesspit, the use of low quality or even non human use oils treated with chemicals to make them look and smell like high quality olive oil has become so common that's nearly the standard these days.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

other way around, countries that produces high quality olive oils are lobbying for stricter rules as they cant compete with low-quality, tampered oils sold as evo that are invading the market.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

from what our anti-tampering police is discovering looks like most "fake" olive oil that get into italy comes from spain more than greece - or at least the refineries are spanish, the actual source are still unknown, probably outside EU.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, lets remove the rules that are protecting you, well see if it will go as well as it has gone for the small milk producers....

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

They were the primary lobbyists for the legislation so... that's pretty much exactly what happened.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

What is that supposed to mean? The rules on dairy products are almost entirely in place to counter issues with factory scale dairy operations. Smaller operations have rarely had a problem.

that said, we need large operations.

I think you missed all the subtly in my comment. I addressed all these things.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Locally it can be simple to check on how it is produced and you can verify you get what you are buying.

When it is transferred longer distances verifying contents are not harmful becomes another thing..

In Finland local milk products are in similar situation where more restrictions are made.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

It has more to do with the richer countries enjoying stronger lobbying positions on the system.

You see this in any large government. The powerful portions of the system subordinate and dominate the less powerful portions.

You can see other examples of this in Australia and California. In Australia farmers are literally committing suicide due to having their water stolen by cities that failed to do proper urban planning or failed to act on urban planning that required them to build water infrustructure.

They ran out of water and so stole it from the farmers... ruining the farms, destroying family businesses, and causing a few of them to literally blow their brains out on the capital steps. Similar things have been going on in california as well.

And you can see the same thing going on in the EU at large and even within the member states. Southern Italy generally suffers from indifferent policy from northern italy. Sicily isn't well served especially by Milan which cares nothing for that island or its people.

In the UK, you can see the same thing going all over it. My favorite example was when they almost gave Gibraltar to the Spanish without even informing the Gibraltars. Imagine your government almost giving away your land to another government without even involving you or any representative of your community in the discussion.

It happens all over the world.

As they say in China, "the mountains are high and the Emperor is far."

There are solutions to the problem but you first have to know it exists. Failing to know whether it exists at all furthermore is basically an admission that given power is not competent to run anything of that scale. It is fundamental.

I could go into more detail but only if desired.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

Many of the regulations are only contextually relevant. The best example would be comparing very small farms with very large farms. The health and safety requirements for a large farm are needed. However in smaller operations they don't have the same contamination issues and so they're not relevant.

You can also look at small cattle ranches and dairy operations. A small dairy farm for example can generally produce completely safe milk without pasteurization. It became a health issue when they started making much larger operations.

This lack of context is typical of the issue. You look at what is relevant in YOUR area and then you assume and project those assumptions on to everyone else.

That is sometimes fine and often it is not fine.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

So long as you allow local producers to sell to local consumers internally within the country without all the regulation... then fine.

I can understand someone in a different country wanting some checks on the product before import. However, don't tell me that I can't use produce from a local farmer that I've known since I was a small child because the food hasn't gone through some stupid health inspection check that only large farms will have done in the first place.

Because then that local farm has to sell their products to that farm instead. And then the produce gets old and I have to pay more for it. That is fucking bullshit. If I want olive oil from a local farmer, then I'm going to buy it from him.

Come and get copper.

Re:Never going to happen

[MatthewCCNA]

I think you missed all the subtly in my comment.

subtly... This is slashdot, we don't do subtly here.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

The people in the area would typically just come by with a jug and fill it up with fresh oil as needed. But that is being made illegal.

I call BS. Perhaps the regulation will prevent villagers from collecting their oil in a jug and selling it off as Virgin Oil, but it won't ever be illegal to simply collect oil for your own use in any way you wish (and the supplier would accommodate).

Re:Never going to happen

[ChunderDownunder]

Cheap European exports are shit. Caveat emptor!

http://www.hospitalitymagazine...
http://www.theglobalmail.org/f...
http://ausfoodnews.com.au/2010...

That's not to say quality olive oil isn't produced in Mediterranean countries but if the price is too good to be true, beware.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia farmers are literally committing suicide due to having their water stolen by cities that failed to do proper urban planning or failed to act on urban planning that required them to build water infrustructure.

Fortunately this scenario is very unlikely in those countries actually following the later environmental agreements which include most of EU. Urban planning is heavily regulated here and compensations, participation in the processes and right to complain about decisions are legislated.

Re:Never going to happen

[AmiMoJo]

I did some research and this appears to be a classic Euro Myth.

There is some information about the regulations here: http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/o...

The Italian parliament seems keen on them. The rules don't mandate "specific EU approved bottles", they simply require minimum standards for bottling like a security seal that lets the consumer know that the bottle was not opened prior to purchase. Apparently adulterated olive oil is a big problem, which is why the Italians were so quick to bring their implementation of the EU regulations into law. Small businesses can easily buy bottles that meet the criteria and do their own bottling. The labelling requirement is a trivial change to existing labels.

It isn't clear if Italy has banned "fill your own jug" shops. The UK has, but it's not mandatory under the EU rules. The issue seems to be that such shops are hard to regulate. The point of the rules is to ensure that olive oil is safe and unadulterated, and having it dispensed from a fusti makes that difficult. If Italy wanted to allow it they could, simply by enforcing the standards for labelling and security on the fusti.

Overall it sounds sensible and well thought out, balancing the need for consumers to get a safe product that is what it says it is and the need for small businesses to comply cheaply and easily.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

Hmm... I see no evidence of that in europe.

If anything, the areas simply have more water so running out is less likely... and your communities are quite a bit older so things have fixed in place a bit more firmly.

Name a place in Europe that is having such problems with water that the aquifers are being drained and the earth itself is heaving inward... dipping in because all the water has been sucked out of the ground?

There are only a few places in Europe that you could really call a desert and they're all very near large amounts of fresh water.

The water laws and rights in the American south west and in Australia are the most complex in the world. And the reason for it is that water is life in those places.

Imagine owning 100,000 acres of land and it being utterly worthless because there is no water. Add the water and it is priceless. Remove it and it is worthless.

This is something that people in more precipitous regions do not grasp. They take the water for granted. It is something that falls from the sky and comes out of a pipe. Imagine neither of those things happening. The rivers running dry, the sky being bone dry for years, and even the deep wells running dry.

In such regions you plan for the drought that will come.

In California we have a bad one every 30 years or so. Last one was in the 70s. Very bad drought.

They worked out that the solution was to expand infrastructure to weather a drought that could last upwards of 5 to 7 years.

They drew up plans for new dams and aqueducts. New water treatment facilities... etc. And guess what? The fucktard successors looted the funds to pay for stupid projects... mostly for political reasons. And after all those years... the next big drought has come. And these idiots are blaming it on global warming. It was known this was going to happen decades ago. And they sat on it until it was too late. And all you'll hear out of them now are fucking excuses.

And who pays the price? The farmers. Because they're too weak to stop the cities from stealing their water.

Remember that tract of land with and without water? Exactly... everything they have... Gone. Stolen to cover up the incompetent management of the cities.

Re: Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

A tax for those out of state is a barrier to trade and interstate commerce was set up to get rid of barriers between states. No taxation without representation. However, what we have now is taxation with representation and its not working out very well.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just about "protectionist" strategies. It's about the way media rights are licensed geographically. Take a service like Netflix. The might buy the rights to show in a film in certain countries but not others - a world wide licence might be prohibitively expensive. If Netflix were to be required to offer the same service EU wide, then presumably they would only be able to show content in any EU country for which they had EU wide licences.

Re:Never going to happen

[TemporalBeing]

Many of the regulations are only contextually relevant. The best example would be comparing very small farms with very large farms. The health and safety requirements for a large farm are needed. However in smaller operations they don't have the same contamination issues and so they're not relevant.

That depends on the regulation, the cause, etc. Yes there may not be as much potential for contamination, but there is still a possibility. The regulations therefore should be progressive in nature much like many other things - if you exceed X then Y applies.

You can also look at small cattle ranches and dairy operations. A small dairy farm for example can generally produce completely safe milk without pasteurization.

Actually that is a very bad example. A small dairy farm is actually more like to have certain issues than a large one. For instance, if the cattle are range fed then the propability of "bad feed" (e.g a cow eating a plant that when passed through in the milk can be dangerous to humans) goes up significantly with a smaller number of cattle to mix it together with, especially since the possibily that more cattle ate the "bad feed" goes up too. This is taken care of through homogonization; but pasteruization also has a good and equal roll even for small dairy farms.

It became a health issue when they started making much larger operations.

This lack of context is typical of the issue. You look at what is relevant in YOUR area and then you assume and project those assumptions on to everyone else.

That is sometimes fine and often it is not fine.

True, pasterization does play a bigger role in larger dairy farms where milk is more likely to sit for longer periods of time, thus breeding more bacteria, etc. That doesn't make it irrelevant for smaller dairy farms though.

But to your point, yes regulations need to be in context and implemented progressively against the size of the organization they are regulation.

Re:Never going to happen

[AmiMoJo]

Then the consumer decides whether they care or not.

That's the fundamental flaw in your argument. It assumes that consumers are informed and have enough money to make choices like this. Even if you are happy to blame people for not knowing enough about olive oil, you can't really deny that people with little money often can't afford to pay the premium for better quality products.

By raising the minimum level it ensures that there will be cheap but safe and reasonable quality olive oil available to everyone. Otherwise the market will do its usual thing of screwing consumers so corporations can make big profits. This is food we are talking about, it's too important to let the market run wild with it.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

I addressed this issue already.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

They do not and will not account for such situations because there isn't enough political power to slap the politicians in the mouth, make them look in your eye, and tell them how it is...

The powerful interests have that power which is why they get exemptions built into the system and the laws are generally tailored for their operation.

Anyone that can't do that tends to get fucked.

And as the system gets larger you have to hit the politicians in the face progressively harder to get them to pay attention.

As the system gets larger only the very largest interest get any attention at all. Which means all the less powerful interests are ignored. Outright irrelevant.

And that is a problem when entire countries or states in your government fall into that category.

No government or state can be irrelevant. And if they are then your system was poorly designed or you've grown too large for your existing system.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

That isn't a governmental issue, that is an industry issue. The industries themselves can decide how they want to license their products. They don't need the EU to tell them what terms can be on it.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

The water laws and rights in the American south west and in Australia are the most complex in the world. And the reason for it is that water is life in those places.

And yet the issues of not performing the required analyses about the impact of water taking do occur as you described. In Europe there are indeed much less severe drought compared to Australia and other naturally desert dominated areas, although Spain and Southern Italy do suffer from extreme drought occasionally and more often in the future, as the climate conditions change and Sahara comes knocking, so to speak.
  The point was indeed the legal and regulated process of such developments, not the specific problem of water shortage. Building, water use, pollution, waste management, land use, zoning, forest and game, musealization of culturally important items and all that impact the land owners required investments, required reporting to authorities and potential buyers, property value and applicable compensations and rights to be heard during larger developments (like a city taking water from a nearby aquifer, or building of a road).

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

Okay... then go with my system, only condescendingly tell poor people that they're exclusively forbidden to make choices for themselves and that their betters, as represented by your noble self, will make those choices for them.

They are only filthy peasants after all... what do they know.

I will really be nice when this world view finally dies.

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

I've seen no evidence that if powerful interests want something in europe they won't just take it.

Re:Never going to happen

[AmiMoJo]

How did you get from my suggestion to give them more choices to "take away all their choices"?

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

You said that poor people don't have the "right" information and are so driven by economic factors that even if they do know they'll buy the wrong product because it is cheaper. So you want to force them to only buy the product you think is correct.

Is that inaccurate?

Re:Never going to happen

[TemporalBeing]

They do not and will not account for such situations because there isn't enough political power to slap the politicians in the mouth, make them look in your eye, and tell them how it is...

The powerful interests have that power which is why they get exemptions built into the system and the laws are generally tailored for their operation.

Anyone that can't do that tends to get fucked.

And as the system gets larger you have to hit the politicians in the face progressively harder to get them to pay attention.

As the system gets larger only the very largest interest get any attention at all. Which means all the less powerful interests are ignored. Outright irrelevant.

And that is a problem when entire countries or states in your government fall into that category.

No government or state can be irrelevant. And if they are then your system was poorly designed or you've grown too large for your existing system.

Not saying that is not a problem; and I don't know the comparison in EU but it's probably not much different than in the US in that SMBs (Small-Medium Businesses) make up the vast majority of businesses in the US, while no one single business has a lot of clout, there are organizations that tend to represent a majority of them and are big enough to be able to combat the larger (Large Businesses and Enterprise) organizations. In some cases, the SMBs get represented several times - between the various SMB organizations, Chambers of Commerce at different levels, etc. This is why many things - like the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - are progressive in nature in the US; if fully enforced on SMBs they would put those companies out of business entirely so they are progressive in that as the business grows in size (revenue or number of employees depending upon the law or regulation) then more things kick in. For FMLA and ADA the first things kick in at around 50 employees, more at 100, more at 500, etc.

I use FMLA and ADA b/c I'm familiar with how they kick in; however, I know there are many others that are structured similarly but use different measures. For instance, Business Licenses usually have a revenue portion associated with them so you pay X + Y*M where X is the base, Y is your pre-tax revenue, and M is the progressive multiplier based on how big Y is.

Again, I don't know how well the comparison holds up for the EU, but I imagine it's not much different.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct that there are special interest groups promoting protectionism in the EU, but are you also really saying that the EU has decreased commerce among countries? Citation needed indeed...

Re:Never going to happen

[Karmashock]

The US is the exception to many rules... usually in our favor.

Re:Never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

But..but that would be like corruption!! ;)

They are all Cunts.

[Anonymous Coward]

All people in charge of anything are all cunts no matter what. Fuck them all the cunts.

Re:They are all Cunts.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're in charge of your keyboard. What does that say about you?

Re:They are all Cunts.

[Barsteward]

how do you know? his mum might be typing on his behalf

Re:They are all Cunts.

[Anonymous Coward]

There you are... (SCNR, different AC)

Most expensive digital media market

[Anonymous Coward]

The most expensive digital media market wants the prices found in the markets in regions that have totally different income brackets and standards of living?

Sounds like EU wants more buying power, but the result will be increases in prices so that people in less affluent parts of the world are pushed out.

Re:Most expensive digital media market

[paavo512]

The most expensive digital media market wants the prices found in the markets in regions that have totally different income brackets and standards of living?

The general idea of EU is to unify these "totally different income brackets and standards of living". There are special huge help programs for poorer member states.

Re:Most expensive digital media market

[Anonymous Coward]

From my point of view, everyone in Europe is rich.

Re:Most expensive digital media market

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea and that's bs and don't help at all. Go visit Bulgaria and Baltic states, you'd be amazed. Then go Sweden, Germany or anywhere else and compare.

Geoblocking is highway robbery

[presidenteloco]

It's good to see that the bandits and bridge trolls trying desperately to maintain artificial scarcity and artificial economic friction may soon be disarmed.

Now let's just make that global.

Re:Geoblocking is highway robbery

[tlambert]

It's good to see that the bandits and bridge trolls trying desperately to maintain artificial scarcity and artificial economic friction may soon be disarmed.

Now let's just make that global.

That way *all* the factories can go to China and *all* the call centers can go to India! Yay!

Re:Geoblocking is highway robbery

[rioki]

Where is this digital goods factory you speak of? I would like to visit it...

Re:Geoblocking is highway robbery

[Rei]

What I want to know is, is this going to apply to just the EU, or will it affect the EFTA too?

Seems that everyone blocks access to bloody everything here in Iceland.

Re:Geoblocking is highway robbery

[Anonymous Coward]

If we only could get all the call centres into one country (don't mind which one) that would be great.

Then we can nuke it.

Re:Geoblocking is highway robbery

[Coren22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

I don't know of a location for music specifically, and software is all over the place, but this one fits the summary.

First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

While as an ex-pat, I would doubtless appreciate the opportunity to view BBC iPlayer content free of charge, without use of proxies, etc. - however, those *resident* in the UK are paying for this service, and not through choice either (mandatory TV licence)

I am not sure if my ability to view free content would be fair on those who have no choice but to pay for it - and when you get started on sports broadcasts (football, etc.) - you will be coming up against some very well-funded and powerful interest groups.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like we're approaching a point where the system used to fund the BBC is obsolete.

You know, the UK government could simply change how the funding works. I realize you've had the mandatory fee for 90 years, but that's not such a long time that you have to assume the situation is permanent.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Dr.Saeuerlich]

There are many non geo blocked tax funded European radio and TV channels. Each of them likely has a percentage of their audience not paying fees. However there may be German/French/etd expats in England (or vice versa) who don't care much about the Beeb and who still have to pay the fee. It probably all levels out.
The other question is, is there a potential loss of income? And if so, how much do a few expats cause?

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

But why? This regulation wouldn't prevent them from continuing as they always done. It only prevents BBC from restricting their web page from accesses from non UK addresses.
Since people in other countries are unlikely to care that much for BBC the main difference will be that UK citizens can access BBC when they are out traveling.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many non geo blocked tax funded European radio and TV channels. Each of them likely has a percentage of their audience not paying fees.

Yep, then one where I live flags the content as viable globally or limited depending on the license they have on the content.
What this regulation does is that they now have to require that they can broadcast the content in all of EU when they purchase licenses in the future.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

not mandatory ...

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

or they could just force you to create an account on iPlayer that's tied to your TV license.
But that's just too simple. after all why would they want the ability to block people who havent paid.
It's not like an account system would allow them to open it up to foreign markets either.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[rioki]

It's a matter of mission statement. In Germany the public TV and radio is also payed by a "tax" (it's not called a tax, but it's mandatory). But they broadcast many things, especially the news world wide without restrictions. Up until last year they operated lang wave radio to reach the entire globe. They see it as a service to ex-pat Germans and other people interested in Germany.

The BBC has a long track record of selling their stuff (which is quite good). They have a vested interest to not make it available outside of the UK. But technically you could argue that they are double dipping, since it should be payed though UK TV licenses. (For example in the US this would not fly, since anything produced on tax money is automatically public domain.) The problem is that the BBC relies on these outside of UK licenses to produce the things they do; this law change would throw a spanned in the gears of the BBC's funding. (If would not be totally doom and gloom though, since the only thing that is unblocked is BBC's website's streaming services.)

Re:First principle - who pays?

[havana9]

In 1990 I was listening with a long/medium wave radio the local broadcast made with BBC and other national broadcasters due the nightly ionospheric reflection. Before ADSL and ubiquitous cheap Chinese switching power supplies this was quite easy. I also remember that there were analogue UHF repeaters in Italy for Antenne 2 and Swiss television. Tele Monte Carlo had both an Italian and a French channel. I remember that in the '94 Tele Monte Carlo transmitted the football world cup side by side by Rai, and nobody complained too much. Personally I think that those powerful interest group had been nurtured by the broadcasters that bended over their requests. The problem for national public broadcaster could be an harmonized European TV licensing covering all national broadcasters.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[amaurea]

After the tax-payers have already paid for a program, it doesn't hurt them if that program also benefits the rest of the world. In fact, if I paid for some television program I would want it to reach as large an audience as possible.

The problem is with all the stuff the BBC doesn't produce itself, but instead licenses from others. Those license agreements are usually much more restrictive than they were when television was simply broadcast to whoever could pick it up. Those radio waves didn't care about national borders, but current licence contracts do.

Hopefully multiple broadcasters in Europe will be able to share the costs of a licence for broadcasting across Europe (or ideally the whole world), so that the total costs for each broadcaster doesn't actually get any higher. Or of course one could just pass legislation specifying what the cost should be, though that probably wouldn't bee free market enough for the EU.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure if my ability to view free content would be fair on those who have no choice but to pay for it

What is different as compared to the BBC website? UK residents pay for it, everybody enjoy. BBC is very happy to be considered a reference for news, and this has a cost. Your answer might be that the website has ads which help paying for the expenses. But the iPlayer thing can show ads as well.

Also, the situation is not that unfair when you consider the whole european situation. BBC and the UK residents pay for everybody watching their content, but so do the other national broadcasters working with public funding who at the same time try to address the overseas market, like Deutsche Welle, Radio France International, etc.

Maybe BBC would indeed pay a lot because they are more watched abroad than say the Italian news broacaster. Being successful has a cost, and it's good to know the richer has to pay more.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertising for IPs outside of the UK.
It was already done by them before, it isn't new.

But they cut back services of iPlayer considerably a few times also, because they aren't allowed to sell archived content that is blatantly past an acceptable catch-up period.
In the UK, we already have to BUY DVDs of BBC content, archived content regardless of medium is a secondary product and isn't applicable to be paid for by the licence, but they won't let them do it because it is online, suddenly that makes a difference. (and yet you hear copyright industries screaming that online copying is the same as theft despite it being patently different)

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

The BBC should be a subscription service just like any other entertainment business (i.e. Sky, Netflix, Virgin etc.)

Then anyone in the world should be free to subscribe to their service.

Fuck the BBC licence fee.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[gsslay]

But technically you could argue that they are double dipping, since it should be payed though UK TV licenses.

Why should it?

If I produce something for a customer, and can then also sell it to another, does my second customer have an expectation that it should be free for them? Or would my first customer not expect that profit from subsequent sales be factored into the price they pay?

The BBC is public funded by UK residents. Those who fund it have every right to demand that the BBC squeeze every penny they can out of foreign sales. This money goes back into the BBC and supplements the public funding.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Xiaran]

> mandatory TV licence The TV license is not mandatory. I did not have one for years because I didn't have a TV. However you are constantly bombarded with mail and hassle even if you really are not capable of watching the BBC.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[AmiMoJo]

Lots of people in the UK watch iPlayer without paying. You only need a TV licence to watch live broadcasts. If you stick to recorded programmes on iPlayer it's perfectly okay to use it without a license.

You mention fairness... Currently people in Europe have no ability to pay for most BBC content even if they wanted to. Chances are it wouldn't stream very well to them anyway, due to all the servers being located in the UK. If they get it for free it doesn't take anything away from the people who have to pay.

The only real issue I can see is the extra server load, and thus cost, that it would generate. That could be offset easily using BitTorrent. Just make .torrent versions available. BitTorrent Inc. have streaming technology. ISPs who want to cache can put seed boxes inside their networks like the currently do with caching servers. Okay, there is no DRM, but it sounds like that needs to go away anyway unless they want to keep trying to limit iPlayer to just the EU.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[jabuzz]

I would also point out that selling the content in other territories around the world has been an importance source of revenue for the BBC for many decades. Without it the license fee would have to be much higher to support the content that is produced.

In effect the license fee payers in the United Kingdom only pay for part of the production of a program. As such giving the program away for free to those that did not contribute to it does in fact hurt.

Re:First principle - who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's not fair?
That they're forced into a faulty business model, or that the new law would expose it?

Re:First principle - who pays?

[hughankers]

or they could just force you to create an account on iPlayer that's tied to your TV license.

You only need a TV licence to watch programs that are being broadcast in real time on iPlayer. (ie if you are watching a show on iPlayer that you could also watch simultanuously on a TV.

"If you only ever watch ‘on demand’ programmes, you don’t need a TV Licence. On demand includes catch-up TV, streaming or downloading programmes after they’ve been shown on live TV, or programmes available online before being shown on TV."

Re:First principle - who pays?

[amaurea]

I would also point out that selling the content in other territories around the world has been an importance source of revenue for the BBC for many decades.

I just checked this, and I'm surprised by how much money they get from this: One quarter of their income is from commercial BBC Worldwide sales.

Without it the license fee would have to be much higher to support the content that is produced.

I wouldn't say "much higher". It would be 36% higher. Definitely noticable, but not dramatic. Or they would have to produce or buy somewhat less expensive programs. Still, it's much higher than the handfull of % that I had imagined.

Holy Wars

[Roger W Moore]

There are a lot of countries in europe that are not able to export their gods to other countries in europe for basically no reason.

Actually there is a very good reason for this. God exports between countries within Europe tended to involve lots of men with very pointy sticks and were usually rather unpleasant for anyone involved. This seems to have rather killed of the business in recent years.

Re:Holy Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of countries in europe that are not able to export their gods to other countries in europe for basically no reason.

Actually there is a very good reason for this. God exports between countries within Europe tended to involve lots of men with very pointy sticks and were usually rather unpleasant for anyone involved. This seems to have rather killed of the business in recent years.

... mind you the shit only really hit the fan when European god exporters ran into god exporters from the orient. That unfortunate event is still fucking up our politics to this day as evidenced by the fact that the president of the USA can't even metaphorize about going on a god exporting mission to Iraq and we are instantly stuck with another seemingly endless armed dispute about who is exporting the best god.

Re:Holy Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice channeling of Pratchett there

If we make an online EU things

[Anonymous Coward]

So we make something online, some digital service. Along comes the US and its UK allies, hacks the servers, steals the software, intercepts our business VOIPs, looks at our financial state and dealings even with SWIFT data YOU EU lot handed them. Spies on our employees via LinkedIn, and while EU businesses have to obey the laws of the EU, if the corporate sovereignty provisions is agreed in the US-EU treaty, foreign business trade agreements will trump those same laws.

EU businesses are retreating into their nation states because you lot have let us down.

What was yours is now ours.

[westlake]

A new initiative from the European Commission proposes a reformed "single digital market", addressing a number of issues that it sees as obstructions to EU growth, including geoblocking --- where services such as BBC's iPlayer are only available to IP addresses within the host country.

Federalism fails when it ignores cultural distinctions between its member states, igniting controversies that are needlessly provocative and could easily have been avoided.

The iPlayer provides publically funded news and entertainment services targeting a domestic not a European or global audience --- on the face of it, a benign and legitimate purpose.

Re:What was yours is now ours.

[MinamataHG]

Federalism fails when it ignores cultural distinctions between its member states, igniting controversies that are needlessly provocative and could easily have been avoided.

The iPlayer provides publically funded news and entertainment services targeting a domestic not a European or global audience --- on the face of it, a benign and legitimate purpose.

Dumb reason...
Being a foreigner in Japan, I'd like to access contents payed with my taxes from overseas.
No, I can't. So, I have to download or find another to stream contents.

Re:What was yours is now ours.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it targets a domestic audience, then I guess mostly domestic audiences will tune in. It would be of no interest to outsiders, and opening up the walls between countries would not result in large changes.

Re:'Merica

[MinamataHG]

You mean chaos, right?

Greece just called...

[tlambert]

The most expensive digital media market wants the prices found in the markets in regions that have totally different income brackets and standards of living?

The general idea of EU is to unify these "totally different income brackets and standards of living". There are special huge help programs for poorer member states.

Greece just called... they say they're waiting for their credit approval to go through...

Re:Greece just called...

[Anonymous Coward]

The most expensive digital media market wants the prices found in the markets in regions that have totally different income brackets and standards of living?

The general idea of EU is to unify these "totally different income brackets and standards of living". There are special huge help programs for poorer member states.

Greece just called... they say they're waiting for their credit approval to go through...

YIASOU (i am a Greek from Greece)!
Greece is a "poor" state with rich citizens - if we compare the per capita private wealth (subtracting about 35000 euros from it because of the Greek per capita public debt), we Greeks are among the richest Europeans; more than even the Germans...

Re:Greece just called...

[rioki]

Do you pay taxes?

Re:Greece just called...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you pay taxes?

I do, as most do also, but... paying taxes is different from paying adequate taxes for covering the state's -huge- expenses!

Absolutely crucial

[j1976]

The situation since new-year is absolutely horrendous. At January 1st, the VAT rules changed so that digital goods have to be taxed using the VAT rate of the buyer's location, and using the tax law of the buyer's home country. That is: a web shop of any size have to keep track of up to 80 different VAT rates, and the disparate tax law regarding VAT of 28 different EU countries in order to deduce which VAT rate and goods classification is applicable on each single transaction.

As a telling example: In several countries an e-book is only an e-book if it has an ISBN number (usually with a lower than standard VAT rate). Otherwise it's a digital service (with a higher VAT rate). In other countries it's a e-book as long it's a digital text. Or humorously enough, in the case of France: It's only taxed as an e-book if it doesn't have pornographic content, otherwise it's taxed as a digital service.

A good start would be what is proposed in the press release: Harmonized VAT rates and rules for digital goods.

Re: Absolutely crucial

[Dynedain]

And that's exactly what Amazon and other online retailers have been complaining about in the U.S. cross-border sales tax collection attempts. 80 varitations? Try thousandsn with every state, county, and city having their own arbitrary sales tax rules and rates.

Re: Absolutely crucial

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because the US tax system is crap. State tax, county tax, city tax, all at varying rates for different products. Plus there's the "fees" that are basically yet another tax on top of the taxes for services. Live 5 miles up the road, and the tax changes.

Re:Absolutely crucial

[arkhan_jg]

The reason behind it was to stop companies (e.g. amazon, apple and google) setting up shop in the lowest tax countries in the EU (luxembourg and ireland), and thus by only charging a low rate of VAT when exporting to the rest of the EU. This enables them to beat smaller domestic companies on final price, pay less tax overall, and funnels what little tax is collected into these tax havens. So the bigger EU countries were seeing a hefty fall in their direct VAT receipts, and loss of business from domestic companies to these giants that can relocate where they like, thus employment costs and indirect tax losses.

Fixing it by harmonizing VAT rates would require treaty changes and be politically hard to hand one of the big financial levers to the european central bank, especially given not all countries are in the eurozone - imagine the US forcing all state sales taxes to the same rate, set by the fed, and you get the idea.

Thus making companies pay VAT in the buyer's country, not the seller's. What they should have done though is put in a threshold, so companies/sole traders below a certain size were exempt, but that was opposed by some so it was dropped, and well, here we are where a mechanism intended to help small traders against the multinationals is a lot easier for the big boys to follow, particularly the requirements to keep id information about buyer location. Once they roll it out for physical goods too, it's going to be such a cluster f**k.

Hopefully though, the rise of MOSS compliant payment processors should make the system easier to follow - you just put a disclaimer up that final price will be based on the buyers VAT rate, and let the payment processor calculate the right rate and store the records.

Re:Absolutely crucial

[serviscope_minor]

Yep I understand the reason and mostly support it for that reason, but I think it could have been handled a *lot* better. For example, there could have been some sort of threshold, such as the first EUR1,000,000 of annual sales (net before tax) may be charged at the local VAT rate, regardless of the destination. Any sales above EUR1,000,000 must be charged at the destination rate. Companies may opt to charge all sales at the destination rate.

I think a threshold of 1,000,000 is fairly reasonable: you're big enough to have staff dedicated to that end of things, but not big enough to be distorting a market. It would also lower the burden on small businesses considerably.

Shame they didn't do that.

Re:Absolutely crucial

[Kjella]

A good start would be what is proposed in the press release: Harmonized VAT rates and rules for digital goods.

The problem is that unifying VAT and classifications basically regulating half a tax system without regulating the other half. You can tax income and you can tax consumption and there's pros and cons to both. If we're forced to lower our VAT, the other taxes would probably increase to compensate or the other way around. In addition many of the VAT brackets are made for a specific purpose because the goods are either particularly good or bad for society, like taxing books less (knowledge is good) and tobacco more (very bad for public health).

For example, around here we have about half VAT on food. If we can't keep that exception, prices would rise 10%+ on the spot. So would our taxes, in practice we'd probably funnel that money into agricultural subsidies instead which would make our food cheaper, thus creating an even more heavily protected, subsidized agriculture. And the things we want to punish, just add other taxes instead of VAT, unless the EU wants to regulate all consumption tax. That would be a tough sell, I think.

What products and services end up in what VAT bracket is sometimes controversial, for example here in Norway at the moment there's 0% VAT on buying a physical newspaper and 25% VAT on a digital newspaper, because it doesn't meet the criteria for an exemption. Also eating at a restaurant and takeaway ended up in different brackets, so if you take your burger outside and eat it on the sidewalk it's cheaper than sitting down at McDonald's. We have an exception for culture, they were probably thinking more like theater, opera, concerts but exotic dancers won at court as an "artistic performance".

Not saying it can't happen, but if it does it's a big step on the way towards a "United States of Europe".

Re:Absolutely crucial

[Feral Nerd]

The situation since new-year is absolutely horrendous. At January 1st, the VAT rules changed so that digital goods have to be taxed using the VAT rate of the buyer's location, and using the tax law of the buyer's home country. That is: a web shop of any size have to keep track of up to 80 different VAT rates, and the disparate tax law regarding VAT of 28 different EU countries in order to deduce which VAT rate and goods classification is applicable on each single transaction.

As a telling example: In several countries an e-book is only an e-book if it has an ISBN number (usually with a lower than standard VAT rate). Otherwise it's a digital service (with a higher VAT rate). In other countries it's a e-book as long it's a digital text. Or humorously enough, in the case of France: It's only taxed as an e-book if it doesn't have pornographic content, otherwise it's taxed as a digital service.

A good start would be what is proposed in the press release: Harmonized VAT rates and rules for digital goods.

And it is a real pain for the customers when web shops keep raping them on shipping costs and for some reason, even though they are supposed to refund their own countries VAT, they don't do that but pocket the money instead. The poor bloody customer ends up having to pay local VAT on: the product list price + Host country VAT + inflated shipping cost. Just as an example I wanted to buy a few A/D converters on Amazon recently because my local electronics monger went under a while ago (and keep in mind these things ship soldered to a small circuit board and are about the size of a stamp). The price was: $3 per converter * 5 = $15 but they wanted to charge me $42 for shipping!! I recently had a 1 meter long $150 equipment case shipped to me from the US for slightly less than that. Now don't get me wrong, I really like online shopping and I second your call for reform but web merchants can be real scam artists. At the moment I only shop online, particularly across borders, if the price difference is really substantial or I simply can't source the product locally and need it really badly.

Re:Absolutely crucial

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just whining.
Is it so hard to implement the different tax rates for different countries? Isn't this just a different side of the same coin when BUYING items from various countries?

Re:Absolutely crucial

[Intrepid imaginaut]

VAT in Ireland is 23%, I'm not sure I'd call that low.

Re:Absolutely crucial

[Solandri]

Fixing it by harmonizing VAT rates would require treaty changes and be politically hard to hand one of the big financial levers to the european central bank, especially given not all countries are in the eurozone - imagine the US forcing all state sales taxes to the same rate, set by the fed, and you get the idea.

The U.S. is even worse off. There are nearly 10,000 sales tax jurisdictions in the U.S.

The solution is to reverse who is responsible for updating the tax rates. There are a lot more retailers than there are tax jurisdictions. It's stupid to force every retailer do duplicate each others' efforts and update tax rate data from every tax jurisdiction every day. Instead, make it the responsibility of each tax jurisdiction to update their tax rate on a central database every day. Every retailer can then simply download an updated tax table from the central database at the beginning of every business day. That completely eliminates the duplicated effort and produces the most efficient economic system (for distributing sales tax rates at least).

Re:Absolutely crucial

[Cederic]

Ok, could you list the tax rates and rules across a range of goods in each country within the European Economic Area please?

Oh, and provide an update ahead of any changes, so that I can assure I stay current?

Incidentally, while you're at it, could you build the business logic and rules into my website so that it correctly calculates that tax, and reports it in a compliant fashion to each relevant jurisdiction?

Would it be too much to ask that you make this a robust repeatable process, that it's invisible to customers, that it doesn't cost me anything to operate, that it's secure against fraud or tampering, and that it doesn't rely on external services that might be unavailable?

Is it so hard to implement the different tax rates for different countries?

Yes, it fucking is.

Re:Absolutely crucial

[Cederic]

Which is why companies provide tax engines, that take on the complex calculations and that can be updated by the company providing the engine rather than the many thousands of retailers that use it.

It's not a single central database, it's one per vendor, and the tax jurisdictions don't update them, the vendors do, but otherwise it's the solution you're suggesting.

The downside of course is that those vendors want paying for this service...

Re:Absolutely crucial

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as an example I wanted to buy a few A/D converters on Amazon recently because my local electronics monger went under a while ago (and keep in mind these things ship soldered to a small circuit board and are about the size of a stamp). The price was: $3 per converter * 5 = $15 but they wanted to charge me $42 for shipping!!

Amazon mandates (at least for third-party sellers) a fixed price per item for shipping charges, with no discount for multiple item purchases, even if the items can (and should!) be packaged together in a single box for shipment.

At the moment I only shop online, particularly across borders, if the price difference is really substantial or I simply can't source the product locally and need it really badly.

I operate a business selling online and in our own local shop. I am really glad to hear that someone out there shops locally -the market pressure to just close up the storefront and sell online only is very strong, but that would be a very sad world to live in..

Digital Single Market ?!?

[tlambert]

Digital Single Market ?!?

Tell me: why do they want to build a dating site again?

Re: Digital Single Market ?!?

[Pseudonym]

TindEUR.

Ed to geoblocking

[xenobyte]

...or geodiscrimination as I've always called it must be global and it should have happened 20 years ago.

It is one of the leading causes of piracy (unavailability of products locally) and a serious anachronism in a world long ago gone global communication-wise.

Re:Ed to geoblocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen brother!

Re:Ed to geoblocking

[Anubis IV]

So, do you have a global solution that will allow us to establish a unified world order and cooperate together harmoniously across borders, cultures, and languages, or would it be better if I stopped asking questions and just joined you in your idealistic but unrealistic daydream?

I think I'll do the latter.

states rights

[Anonymous Coward]

When the USA started the states had a lot of power and federal government had little. Slowly power was concentrated in DC and now practically all power is centrally concentrated there. Seems like EU is slowly headed in the same direction. There's only one thing people with power want and that's more power.

Poison Chalicle

[Anonymous Coward]

Lovely and noble idea that I would wholeheartedly support, were it not that in practice this may mean "everybody abide by X's rules" where X is an amalgamation of German prudishness and French protectionism, and we end up with a giant Wii-U e-shop where I can't buy video-games before 9pm, and can't order a baguette with my groceries unless it was made within a 1 mile radius of some random French town.

Re:Poison Chalicle

[GuB-42]

can't order a baguette with my groceries unless it was made within a 1 mile radius of some random French town.

You are probably talking about AOP (Appellation d'origine protégée), which is different.
AOP only protects the name of the product, not the product itself. For example it totally possible to make Roquefort-like cheese outside the area of Roquefort (town) but you won't be allowed to call it Roquefort. Think of it as a trademark.
Baguette, by the way, is not protected.
The problem is, in fact, the opposite. France, for example, has a lot of raw milk cheeses that may be incompatible with European food safety regulations.

As for Germany, I don't find them especially prude, except when the Nazis are involved (for obvious reasons). They do however have strict privacy laws (no street view in Germany) and they have one of the worst collecting society in the world : GEMA.

Geoblocking is utterly stupid

[hcs_$reboot]

When geoblocking was easily made available to designers, project managers and above thought it's a good idea to put it everywhere. Like the frames (long time ago), animated gifs (a while ago), or flash crap (more recently). This is just annoying and can be worked around using a vpn. This restrictive feature comes from people who do not understand why the Internet should stay open, and shoot any restrictive measure when a new one shows its face.

BBC is a payed for service

[Crookdotter]

I don't mind in principle, however as far as the BBC is concerned, it shouldn't be streamed abroad without payment. If I pay a license fee to have BBC content, then I don't want others receiving it for free. This would be an excellent money spinner for the BBC.

Re:BBC is a payed for service

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, 100% right,and I speak as someone who doesn't pay for a TV license and therefore *by my own decision* decide not to use the iPlayer service, since it's unfair to benefit without paying.

There also needs to be an EU ban on the illegality of region locking and copyright-driven powers to limit licensing by region. After all, the BBC may not have a license to send the content outside the UK and this ruling would either have the BBC break the contract and sued or pay the company more money or break the new EU law.

Likewise, grey imports must be made specifically and explicitly legal and threats against them specifically and explicitly illegal, for similar reasons.

Mind you the BBC may well be 100% behind the move since they will use this to turn the TV license into an internet tax and I don't want my money going to rich asshole entertainers who scam even more money by running their own production company (of which their family are owners/directors) and demand massive sums of money off the license fee payers' dime.

Jonathan Ross, Terry Wogan and until recently Jeremy Clarkson are egregious examples of the scamming. Private level pay in a protected government-level job under "taxpayer" funded schemes are, oddly enough, never a reason for those who rail against the BBC license fee, however. They complain they never watch BBC, that it produces nothing that they want to watch, that it wastes money on the BBC (not, though, in a complaint about Terry's huge payout, on the executives, paid much much less), that it is a demand from government is what they hate, not that it's a waste of money. Spending even more on Sky, who pay their talent and executives more is no problem, because that's what companies are supposed to do.

Forgetting that they're also supposed to take more money off you as profit and can demand any salary they can get away with (complaints with MPs feather bedding abound and are justified, but private executive pay is defended with vigour).

But you're right: the BBC have a reason to be region limited. And license fee paid is one of them. Would the EU make the BBC license fee EU-wide? Would other countries accept it? Hell no.

But the BBC may like the idea: it's proof they need to tax the internet instead of trying to find people with a TV (I have none and not for 15 years). If I don't want to pay the BBC to pay Camelot to put their moron tax show on, then I'd have to drop the internet altogether.

Re:BBC is a payed for service

[amaurea]

>If I pay a license fee to have BBC content, then I don't want others receiving it for free.

Why not? That sounds pretty petty. It's already been paid for, and others viewing it doesn't take away its value. If I paid to have something produced, I would want as many people enjoy it as possible. It's people enjoying it that makes it worth paying for social services, and the more people watch the BBC, the more worthwhile it is paying for it. If something you pay for has a large international audience, then that's all the better in my opinion.

Re:BBC is a payed for service

[Anonymous Coward]

Clarkson's show, Top Gear, makes the BBC a £50,000,000 annual profit. More if you include the road shows and other paraphernalia. It's one of the most popular TV shows on the planet. Are you seriously arguing he wasn't worth his pay cheque? He invented the format for the show himself and fronted every single episode. Top Gear was terrible before Clarkson took it over.

Re:BBC is a payed for service

[gsslay]

Dear amaurea,

This is the BBC. Our hearts are warmed by your love for our broadcasts, and your wish to gift it to the rest of the world. You are both gracious and generous.

Now that we no longer sell it abroad, but provide it for free, you will have two options next year;

- Pay a 20% increase in your licence fee to replace this lost revenue.
- Not get another series.

Thanking you.

Re:BBC is a payed for service

[jabuzz]

In addition to loosing the revenue the BBC would also have to massively beef up the iPlayer service at great expense to cope with the extra demand that would be placed on it. So a double wammy as they say.

Re:BBC is a payed for service

[Ash-Fox]

If I pay a license fee to have BBC content, then I don't want others receiving it for free.

BBC should fix this by requiring people to authenticate their TV license to use the site.

Re:BBC is a payed for service

[Anonymous Coward]

The BBC gets a chunk of money for licensing shows overseas, so if it was a free-for-all then they wouldn't have the money to make the shows in the first place... or I'd end up paying more so that others could benefit.

I'm sure the Satellite TV companies would love you to use that argument against them... as it would put them out of business. "It's already been paid for, so why can't I decrypt your broadcast signal? Who's it hurting?" ... or the Movie companies. "It's already been produced, so why can't I Torrent your Movie?" ... or the Software companies, Music Companies, eBook Publishers, or any other intangible product.

If there is no reward for making intangible products, then people will stop making them. Period.

Re:BBC is a payed for service

[hughankers]

If I pay a license fee to have BBC content, then I don't want others receiving it for free.

BBC should fix this by requiring people to authenticate their TV license to use the site.

That would be great except you don't actually need a licence to watch programs on iPlayer..

If you only ever watch ‘on demand’ programmes, you don’t need a TV Licence. On demand includes catch-up TV, streaming or downloading programmes after they’ve been shown on live TV, or programmes available online before being shown on TV."

The consumer DID choose.

[Anonymous Coward]

And since none of them chose B-E graded white goods, there was no demand for them and they weren't produced.

YOUR way ensures that no matter what happens, "regulation was bad!". You claim that regulation should not decide what standards you use and forbid any other because the informed consumer will decide. And if they inform the user and they decide to buy only goods that obey the standard, either they stop producing anything and "the regulation removed the choice!". If the government forced producers to continue to supply all choices, you'd whine about that enforcement too.

I should be allowed to use fake money to pay for goods, otherwise the choice of who will do business with me and sell be stuff in return for a proffer of "cash" will be removed! BAN REGULATION ON CURRENCIES!!!

Re:The consumer DID choose.

[TemporalBeing]

And since none of them chose B-E graded white goods, there was no demand for them and they weren't produced.

YOUR way ensures that no matter what happens, "regulation was bad!". You claim that regulation should not decide what standards you use and forbid any other because the informed consumer will decide. And if they inform the user and they decide to buy only goods that obey the standard, either they stop producing anything and "the regulation removed the choice!". If the government forced producers to continue to supply all choices, you'd whine about that enforcement too.

I should be allowed to use fake money to pay for goods, otherwise the choice of who will do business with me and sell be stuff in return for a proffer of "cash" will be removed! BAN REGULATION ON CURRENCIES!!!

Not necessarily. It's not necessarily that "none of them chose B-E graded white goods". It's that there was not enough chosing the "B-E graded white goods" that the distributors decided it was not worth it, and thereby cut off the supply of B-E graded white goods. May be the A graded white goods high a higher margin or something else that caused the distributor to prefer the A grade over the B-E grades.

In other words, it could be a false consumer choice - one that was not really given to the consumer.

I run into this a lot. There's a number of products that I use to buy but can no longer get because the distributors decided it was in their interest to carry it. The local stores then go "well the distributor doesn't have it so I can't get it for you", and so forth. It hurts products and buyers alike. It hurts the market because it artificially destroys demand that would otherwise be there.

And, to top it off, economists don't take it into account. They just assume that if there are buyers they will buy it. They don't take into account distributors artifically changing the options available to buyers.

Good luck on the geoblocking

[msobkow]

As long as the media companies can sell the rights to their product to individual companies in other nations, you will never see an end to geoblocking. It's part of the business model of making profit from as many opportunities as possible.

Why would CTV here in Canada pay for the rights to broadcast "Gotham" if Canadians could just watch the internet streams from the US directly? Why would the BBC pay for the rights to broadcast CTV's "Orphan Black" if British citizens could just watch the CTV streams from Canada for free?

It's all about the money, and the "cost" of piracy is a pittance compared to the profits they earn with the current model.

Re:Good luck on the geoblocking

[jemmyw]

Well in the case of the BBC that'd surely be a good thing. Paying for American content is just a waste of license payer money if it is available elsewhere. They should be using that money to produce original content.

Local rates = OK, everything else with them = bad

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Hopefully though, the rise of MOSS compliant payment processors should make the system easier to follow - you just put a disclaimer up that final price will be based on the buyers VAT rate, and let the payment processor calculate the right rate and store the records.

Which is, of course, contrary to consumer protection laws in much of Europe. Merchants are often required by law to show tax-inclusive prices for B2C sales. (For anyone interested: I have now received conflicting advice on this from official sources in my own government, indicating that X+VAT pricing is now magically acceptable for this purpose again, despite it largely defeating the point of the previous consumer protection rule by hiding the bottom-line price in early advertising.)

The big problem with the new VAT rules isn't the principle of charging in each customer's home nation, if that just means looking up the rate for a given country from a database instead of using a fixed rate. It's a mild inconvenience, but it's an hour or two of programming work for someone, and with MOSS it's maybe an extra hour to file an additional tax return once per quarter.

For a lot of merchants (though certainly not all and particularly not the really tiny ones) the problem isn't even the need to impose VAT on transactions instead of having a threshold. As I understand it, some businesses selling digital goods in EU states didn't have VAT thresholds before anyway, so they already had reporting requirements here, and in places like the UK that did have a minimum threshold before VAT was compulsory, some merchants would have chosen to register for VAT voluntarily anyway because it was advantageous in terms of reclaiming VAT on their expenses.

IMHO the largest and most enduring problems with the new VAT rules are actually all the other things that came along with charging at customer-local rates, from conflicts with pre-existing laws on things like consumer protection and data protection (or potential conflicts, with inconsistent advice coming even from government departments) to the fact that you also have to match the entire VAT regime in each country not just the rate, which means things like knowing which rates apply to which products or services and the local geographical issues (I hope you're not just looking up a tax rate by ISO country code like, you know, everyone, because that doesn't actually work reliably). And of course you require a standard of evidence for the customer's location that will be literally impossible for many small merchants to comply with; at present, I don't see how it's possible for any fully automated system to be 100% reliable here, even for big payment services with dedicated resources and access to all the relevant raw data, because of those local issues of different interpretations of which product/service types get which tax rates and the local geographical anomalies.

The best part of all is that even the EU didn't manage to publish an accurate source of current VAT rates across all affected states in time for the deadline. The information on their own web site was actually wrong for several weeks after the switchover, because Luxembourg changed their VAT rate on the same day. And no-one wanted the data in an actually useful form so you could do something stupid like importing it into a database, right? PDFs running to dozens of pages that you can scan for relevant information are so much more useful.

Hilariously, Luxembourg are actually being compensated by the EU for these changes anyway, so all the arguments about preventing exploitation of low tax rates by different nations within the EU doesn't look so noble any more either.

Re:'Merica

[davester666]

The US has been exporting that for quite some time.

And we could really use a Digital Single Market to resell all the music that we no longer want to listen to.

Sorry, not available in Canada

[doccus]

I would love to never again see these words. Ever.