Threatened by potential EU regulatory changes, the movie, music, and sports industries are vehemently defending the practice of geo-blocking, as an essential part of their business models. Rightsholders argue that eliminating geo-blockades would devalue content, force price hikes for consumers in some countries, and ultimately reduce investment in content and localized services.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 day ago

    It’s kind of crazy that video content is exempt from the EU single market. What was the reasoning for that? The link to the previous article doesn’t even mention it - was written seemingly before it came into action or was defined.

    What it does mention is why it’s so critical.

    Due to complicated licensing agreements Netflix is only available in a few dozen countries, all of which have a different content library.

    And also

    This means that consumers will have the right to access content they purchased at home in other European countries.

    If you have a single market, and free travel (Schengen), being able to access and buy content in them is substantial, or would otherwise subvert them.

    If it’s only regional, I can at least see some reasoning; the purchasing power varies quite a bit between countries. But still, there’s the question of how that relates to and opposes the idea and conditions of a single market. And it certainly doesn’t warrant geo-blocking like what you have access to or can buy. Regional pricing could be implemented by a law-defined or -restricted simple factor based on purchasing power.

    Steam does different regional prices even within Europe too, right?