The movie and TV industry complains about "piracy" but in many ways they have been "pirates" themselves!
According to this article in today's LA Times (by Daniel Miller, Meg James, and Ryan Faughnder), it appears that Europe believes that they were being anti-competitive I always wondered why the US has allowed the movie and TV industry to do "geo-blocking" which means that the studios could allow shows to be viewed only in certain regions and not others. Other industries, (for example beer distributors) tried to do similar things, but US anti-trust regulations made them cease. It appears that the movie/TV industry is somewhat "protected" politically in the US. The "Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for example, gave that industry a multi-billion dollar windfall.
It never made sense for the industry to do the geo-blocking, because it is easy, but cumbersome for consumers to get around the blocking, by either using a VPN back to a US carrier, , or buy and ship DVDs to other countries. I always thought the industry would maximize profits by releasing worldwide. However this article explained that the real rationale is that the studios don't like the idea that they might have to negotiate rates with similar-size "peers" -- they want to keep their customers small, so they can exercise their "power" over the smaller-size distributors and get much higher rates.-- Now I understand! That is clearly an unfair practice!
According to this article in today's LA Times (by Daniel Miller, Meg James, and Ryan Faughnder), it appears that Europe believes that they were being anti-competitive I always wondered why the US has allowed the movie and TV industry to do "geo-blocking" which means that the studios could allow shows to be viewed only in certain regions and not others. Other industries, (for example beer distributors) tried to do similar things, but US anti-trust regulations made them cease. It appears that the movie/TV industry is somewhat "protected" politically in the US. The "Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for example, gave that industry a multi-billion dollar windfall.
It never made sense for the industry to do the geo-blocking, because it is easy, but cumbersome for consumers to get around the blocking, by either using a VPN back to a US carrier, , or buy and ship DVDs to other countries. I always thought the industry would maximize profits by releasing worldwide. However this article explained that the real rationale is that the studios don't like the idea that they might have to negotiate rates with similar-size "peers" -- they want to keep their customers small, so they can exercise their "power" over the smaller-size distributors and get much higher rates.-- Now I understand! That is clearly an unfair practice!
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