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You are assuming that content companies are financially disadvantaged by having regional licensing deals. As large for profit enterprises, I don't think they would share your opinion on how to maximize their profits.
I think they realize that while advertisers in the untied states may be wiling to pay X us dollars per 1000 views by Us residents, in other countries they want to pay nothing for Non us residents that would be unlikely to buy their products. Meanwhile, Advertisers in other countries may be willing to pay a smaller amount for viewers in their region.
So you have a system whereby the revenues are variable, but the costs ( to provide the service) are fixed.
Is it "fair" to average consumers, no not really. Even though I'm in the US, I have never ever bought anything after clicking on a web ad of any kind. So I'm as useful an individual for advertising as anyone elsewhere.
Summary: Its more complex than " let everyone view everything anytime and you'll be rich", Or at least the analysis that would lead to that conclusion would be more complex. Answers without the logic that leads to them are often worthless.
Who said anything about advertising? We would like to buy the content. And it should be available to anyone that is willing to pay. Otherwise can you really blame us for torrenting?
Member since:
2010-09-23
Interesting blog post, Eugenia, and sadly, the passage of a year has not improved the situation. But the most important point you made is buried right at the end:
"Stop the per-country madness"
There are around 6.6 billion of us NOT living in the US. In South Africa, for example the only way I can get full functionality on iTunes and the AppleTV is to break the law and set up a fake US iTunes account. It happens, people quite openly admit it on the discussion forums around here.
Fire up the Hulu or Netflix websites and you get vague excuses for not being available in your country. Meanwhile, I can email and tweet with people all over the planet. The first content provider that truly goes global will be raking in the money.