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Movie, Music, and Sports Industries Urge EU to Maintain Geo-Blocking, Citing Critical Importance for Content Financing, Distribution, and Consumer Pricing Across Europe.

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Movie, Music and Sports Industries Urge EU to Keep Geo-Blocking in Place * TorrentFreak

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.

7 comments
  • 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?

7 comments