EU Commission Divided Over Nation-Specific Content Blocking

jfruh writes In theory, the European Union is supposed to act as a single national market. But one area in which practice doesn't live up to theory is geoblocking: Europeans may find that a website they can reach or content they have a legal right to stream in one EU country is blocked in another. Now two members of the EU Commission (the equivalent of a nation's cabinet) are feuding as to whether geoblocks should be eliminated: Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said that "deep in my heart ... I hate geoblocking," while Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Günther Oettinger, worrying about protecting the European film industry, said "We must not throw the baby out with the bathwater."

Comments

How is limiting your market protection?

[bulled]

One would think that a bigger potential market would be _better_ for the European film industry. Clearly I don't understand capitalism.

Re:How is limiting your market protection?

[IamTheRealMike]

Clearly I don't understand capitalism.

Clearly. Geoblocking is at least partially about market segmentation. The EU is so large that it has extremely major disparities in wealth between its member nations. Consider the difference between Sweden and Romania. If you have a movie and charge a single price to stream it across the entire EU then:

a) Some people will find it incredibly cheap and others will find it still too expensive, just pushing them back towards piracy.

b) You end up having to deal with the tax systems of every single EU country anyway due to the retarded VAT changes they introduced this year, so it doesn't help simplify your business at all, and you theoretically aren't allowed to opt out of serving particular regions due to their horrible paperwork requirements, so being able to geoblock unprofitably complicated regions whilst claiming you have some other reason is quite attractive.

Re:How is limiting your market protection?

[bulled]

Clearly I don't understand capitalism.

Clearly. Geoblocking is at least partially about market segmentation. The EU is so large that it has extremely major disparities in wealth between its member nations. Consider the difference between Sweden and Romania. If you have a movie and charge a single price to stream it across the entire EU then:

a) Some people will find it incredibly cheap and others will find it still too expensive, just pushing them back towards piracy.

I suppose this is slashdot and I should expect any reponse to my inital post to be condesending, well done. You wanted an argument, this is abuse

Keeping things geo-locked pushes people to piracy. Drop the locks and at least the portion of the population that want to pay either for content or convience can do so. Geolocking doesn't stop those that will pirate, it stops those that will not from paying.

b) You end up having to deal with the tax systems of every single EU country anyway due to the retarded VAT changes they introduced this year, so it doesn't help simplify your business at all, and you theoretically aren't allowed to opt out of serving particular regions due to their horrible paperwork requirements, so being able to geoblock unprofitably complicated regions whilst claiming you have some other reason is quite attractive.

If we are assuming the basics of captialism hold here and there is a sufficiently sized market, the regulatory changes will be made. If not by the multinationals looking for profit, then by the local people who are pissed they can't buy what they want.

Re:I dunno...maybe you could check the LAW?

[Luckyo]

It's not as simple as you think.

The argument against a factual one rooted in reality - European movie making is a fairly small business, but important for each local culture. And they do indeed need protection to survive, because they are not commercially as strong as the big players who tend to dominate. And big players are well known for making deals that would destroy local movie makers by squeezing their money flows.

This isn't so much of a "feud" as beginning in the standard process of European decision making. That is seeking consensus between "common digital market" and "how do we keep our cultural producers alive in a world where their output is increasingly important to national identity".

Re:I dunno...maybe you could check the LAW?

[Richard_at_work]

Protecting the what? Bah ha ha ha, er, yes, I'm certain there is a "European film industry." (Cough.)

James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc etc ;) All mostly filmed in the UK.

stop doing stupid shit with VAT then

[dominux]

At the start of this year VAT changed so that for digital online sales the place of supply is where the consumer belongs. This means if you sell an app/ebook/knitting pattern/recipe/tune then you have to collect two bits of non-conflicting evidence of the place of belonging of the consumer, then figure out which of the 70 or so rates of VAT across 27 countries applies for the specific product (several have special ebook rates) then you add VAT to the price and remit it to HMRC through the mini one stop shop (VATMOSS). There is no threshold for this and you can get penalties each quarter from 27 different countries if you get it wrong. Or, you can geoblock and say "screw you, I can't cope with this shit." to potential customers outside the UK.
Geoblocking is about the only sane response to VATMOSS.

Re:Ironic headline

[Megahard]

And the Belgians are waffling.

Geoblocking

[fyngyrz]

"Geoblocking" is just a tech-specific euphemism for "muzzling content we don't want you to see."

As such, it is entirely disrespectful, specifically in that it attempts to deny people the ability to make their own choices. It is a direct manifestation of "we know better than you what you should be able to see, read, listen to, and use."

This is about personal agency. Part of that WRT to network access is -- should be -- the choice to implement boundaries of your own using the appropriate tools. Of which there are many, ranging from user-friendly whitelists and blacklists to keeping your hosts file updated (highly recommended, btw... great for killing advertisers, too.) And of course, there's always "I'll just click away from here", an actual sane adult choice.

The one upside is that in some cases, this kind of top-down systemic oppression will just make people learn about secure proxies faster.

preliminary content types already defined

[nimbius]

As widely known in the EU the preliminary content types are readily available for review.
1. France: ISIS recruitment videos are to be blocked, replaced with prophet muhammad dancing hardstyle.
2. Ireland: images of sheep deemed too racy for minors, miners, and farmers to be banned.
3. Italy: links to objective reporting on church scandals to be redirected to a gucci outlet.
4. Malta: widely understood to be the only member country in the EU capable of handling the actual internet, uncensored.
5. Poland: Images of potato will be confiscated by free potato man/secret police.
6. UK: video/depictions of tea being poured into milk will be redirected to a warning page, and a stern letter will be delivered regarding scalding of the milk.

Re:Ironic headline

[maroberts]

The irony is that the EU was intended to create a **Single** market for goods and services. Geoblocking, especially at a national or regional scale, should be anathema to the EU.

Re:I dunno...maybe you could check the LAW?

[sabri]

James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc etc ;) All mostly filmed in the UK.

Ah yes, the UK. Where they kill the one goose that lays golden eggs. I believe his name was Clarkson.

Bring
Back
Clarkson.

Re:Ironic headline

[Luckyo]

Partially correct. But "intended to create" does not mean "successfully created", nor does it mean "universal free market for everything".

There is no irony here, unless you find that anything that is "in progress" is "ironic". In which case you need a dictionary.