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EU Agrees To Cross-Border Access To Streaming Services (variety.com)
Putting in place the first piece of its hoped-for unified digital market, the European Union has agreed on new rules allowing subscribers of online services in one E.U. country access to them while traveling in another. From a report: "Today's agreement will bring concrete benefits to Europeans," said vice president in charge of the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, in a statement. "People who have subscribed to their favorite series, music and sports events at home will be able to enjoy them when they travel in Europe. This is a new important step in breaking down barriers in the Digital Single Market." Variety explain: That said, "portability" is the least contentious of DSM regulations being advanced by the European Commission. Reached yesterday, the agreement between the Commission, the E.U.'s executive arm, the European Parliament and the E.U.'s Council of Ministers, representing its 28 member states, will allow consumers to fully use their online subscriptions to films, sports events, e-books, video games or music services when traveling within the E.U. The online service providers who will be mandated to make these services available range from video-on-demand platforms (Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Prime, Mubi, Chili TV) to online TV services (Viasat's Viaplay, Sky's Now TV, Voyo), music streaming services (Spotify, Deezer, Google Music) and game online marketplaces (Steam, Origin).
I live in the UK. Can I has streaming pleez?
and this is proof. Why is the government deciding how media companies offer their services? If should be up to the companies themselves to decide what works best for them. Sure, this may be beneficial to the consumer, but ultimately it's up to companies to decide how beneficial to customers they want to be.
Corporate interests are more important than consumer interests, that's just the capitalist way. It's why America is strong, and Europe is weak. Because Americans put corporate interests ahead of the interests of its citizens and the EU often does the reverse.
Now you just need to get the rest of the world on the go. It's ridiculous what it costs to roam, even when you take into account local networks might not be as good as back home. Cabo Verde using a UK SIM? It was something like £40 for 40MB time limited to a day. Buy a local SIM for 10USD? 4GB. There's no reason it needs to be that expensive. Same goes for Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, and Indonesia. There's nothing but bureaucracy standing in the way of global data plans. In all those places, local SIMS worked great and had good rates for several gigabytes of data, but roaming would need you to pay exorbitant amounts to get the same amount of data.
Isn't this the whole point of the EU? A single economic trading zone?
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Maybe this will keep LePen out of power. Seriously... circuses and all that.
That consumers get the same benefits from a global market that corporations have.
Doesn't solve the problem that "This service is not available in your country" in the first place. If I can't even subscribe to the service in my own country first what tf do I need streaming roaming for?
This is only preliminary move: ... this will be end of different pricing for different markets ... ... Those "Russian game keys" with lower price but valid in Russia only .. ... The same is for Poland, Romania ... so they will get hit hard , paying for content the same price as in UK.
from one side you get access to content in other EU countries
on another side
EU is attacking Steam for this
Yes that is not EU, but well known
If sellers do not do that, one will watch Premier League matches in English pub transmitted via Romanian or Polish sat decode ... (popularity is there low, so price is low).. like here http://www.bbc.com/news/business-17150054
So right holders will hike price everywhere to the highest level to avoid "loss" ....mythical loss because maybe tourist resort in Greece will pay for transmission with UK price tag.
BAN the BAN!
CAN the CAN!
DAN the DAN!
FAN the FAN!
LAN the LAN!
MAN the MAN!
BAHHHHHN the BAAAHHHHN!
While the EU (government) may agree to this, isn't it up to the companies providing the streaming service (and also the content copyright holders)
Those service providers would love nothing more than to provide their service anywhere in the world to all their subscribers. It would vastly simplify their software and infrastructure.
They only reason they restrict their services based on geography is because they're forced to do so by the music, TV/movie, and game studios, who insist on different release schedules and different pricing in different countries and regions in order to eek out a tiny bit more profit.
Region-restricted work B is based on an underlying work A whose author has been dead for more than 50 but less than 100 years. Copyright in work A has expired in the countries where work B is available but still subsists in other countries. If the publisher of work B were to make work B available in countries where copyright in work A subsists, the publisher of work A would sue the publisher of work B and win.
Or a work has an age rating in one country but is Refused Classification in another.
Or a work has an age rating in one country, and the other country requires all commercially available works in that medium to be age rated for that country, but the publisher has no evidence of enough interest in the work in the other country to justify the cost of submitting it to the other country's age rating board.
If a copyright owner does not consent to the digital single market, it would have to withdraw its works from all streaming services across the European Union. I am not privy to the contracts between copyright owners and streaming services in order to determine whether they allow a copyright owner to perform such a withdrawal.