Hidden Camera Stunt Highlights The Absurdness Of Geo-Blocking

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It's funny how most people are totally fine with geo-blocking when it comes to digital content but, once you apply the same principles to everyday shopping, their attitude changes in a hurry. Obviously U.S. residents don't have to worry as much about geo-blocking but, as this video demonstrates, the rest of the world thinks it's pretty ridiculous.
 
I don't see how that equates at all to digital content.

In this real world example, the customers are IN the business' country. Therefore they are already following that countries' law. When it comes to movies, for example, Hollywood is where the content comes from. They have no control over it in other countries. So they block the content until they get to some agreement.

Unless I'm being completely ignorant here, this video does a poor job demonstrating why digital geo-blocking sucks.
 
certainly makes no sense with physical shopping. but.... digital "something" purchase by somebody on the other side of the planet with no physical interaction... i'm not sure if that's the same
 
After being denied the new documentary on Elizabeth II our queen at 90 of all things last night this is right on point.

"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by BBC Worldwide."

seriously?
 
Being able to virtually visit a Steam catalog in a poorer country than mine and pay their price sounds great, but in reality it would eventually bankrupt the system. It sucks, but I get it. Also, why do I deserve to benefit from some other country's contract with a digital provider? Would I love US Netflix? Of course. But I understand why I don't get access to it in Canada without cheating the system.
 
I don't see how that equates at all to digital content.

In this real world example, the customers are IN the business' country. Therefore they are already following that countries' law. When it comes to movies, for example, Hollywood is where the content comes from. They have no control over it in other countries. So they block the content until they get to some agreement.

Unless I'm being completely ignorant here, this video does a poor job demonstrating why digital geo-blocking sucks.

I feelt the same when i watched it. Nesides many time the right owner in different locations are not the same

even looking away form that, the same shops in different countries DO have different prices in physsical world.
This "demonstration" only "worked" because it total negated the fact of actually being in different places.

Buying mcdonalds in Texas is alot cheaper than buying it in Denmark. Also the offerings are slightly different, So physical world have plenty of similar stuff
 
One of the YouTube comments is perfect:
"Hold On ! Let me put on my proxy mask then ! Will that be OK ?"

That said, this is a terrible video and crazy misleading.
 
I feelt the same when i watched it. Nesides many time the right owner in different locations are not the same

even looking away form that, the same shops in different countries DO have different prices in physsical world.
This "demonstration" only "worked" because it total negated the fact of actually being in different places.

Buying mcdonalds in Texas is alot cheaper than buying it in Denmark. Also the offerings are slightly different, So physical world have plenty of similar stuff

Worse still, the video heavily implies that digital geo-blocking is pure discrimination based on where you're from rather than where you are. The latter of which is the actual reasoning behind geo-blocking. (I said this in the youtube comments as well).
 
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You guys missed it, the people are STUPID!! If someone asked me that I would say shove it up your ass, you are not getting my money. Especially from a sissy ass hipster with skinny jeans on, good grief.
 
I just use Epic Privacy Browser. Lets me watch any US network content they try to restrict to the US. Not that I couldn't just watch a clip on YouTube...
 
For the guys saying this isn't relevant as the seller isn't operating in X or Y country so it doesn't apply.

Of course it applies. Because often the person outside the sellers country is paying for the transaction in said country. Which is why he was checking nationalities. For physical goods we do have free trade agreements.

As a Canadian I can purchase items from US retailers and have them shipped to me... paying less in many cases. Even though there is a Canadian supplier of that item here. Due to free trade I can buy those things and the Canadian retailer can't stop me, and has Zero power over my transaction with the retailer I am dealing with in the US. They can offer value in the form of local support, warranties ect... however they can not stop me from dealing with an American supplier. (and US companies that have tried to deny Canadians, based on supporting their Canadian suppliers have lost court battles).

When it comes to digital media for some reason none of those free trade laws apply... and yes it is completely silly, that they are allowed to Price gouge and protect more profitable foreign "suppliers" of their content. If it was a physical product they would have no right to behave that way.
 
Reminds me of Radioshack asking for all your personal info any time you buy anything. I used to tell them to get stuffed, just as I would have this guy.
 
How dare they treat all those white people in high quality Western clothing like they were Muslims or Latino immigrants!
 
That video nails it.
Americans and even the Brits won't see the problem.....Speaking to the local cable providers, most US based providers are simply not interested in providing/licensing content to other countries even when approached. Hell, I can't even buy any games from Amazon if I list my real address. It's not uncommon to pay more for a game because you're not located in the US. Content not available in your country is almost a daily occurrence on youtube, yet I can buy the mp3.

The only thing i can see this helping is keeping the middleman in business.
 
That video nails it.
Americans and even the Brits won't see the problem.....Speaking to the local cable providers, most US based providers are simply not interested in providing/licensing content to other countries even when approached. Hell, I can't even buy any games from Amazon if I list my real address. It's not uncommon to pay more for a game because you're not located in the US. Content not available in your country is almost a daily occurrence on youtube, yet I can buy the mp3.

The only thing i can see this helping is keeping the middleman in business.

To all that disagree about this video's horrible analogy:

I'm sorry that you feel entitled to the content that the US is producing. But it's not your call. Just because it makes total sense for everything digital to be available to everyone, at the end of the day it's business.

If I knew about the best street taco vendor operating on a street corner in Mexico, I wouldn't feel entitled to have those tacos up here in Dallas, TX (as much as I'd want them).

Similarly, I don't have any urge or want to see content from Germany, Japan, or France because I don't know what TV/Movies/Music comes out of there and if I did I wouldn't care if it's blocked in the US. Yes that's an ignorant thing to say but it's the same thing in your case. You just happen to know of the content produced in the US and you're disappointed that the content PROVIDERS are denying you something you heard about/like.

Also let's be clear: content providers aren't denying you anything. They want your money. They are simply forcing you to go through other routes to get you to consume their content (as you mentioned, you can't stream music on youtube but you can buy the MP3).

Business, business, business. Stop taking it personally and stop feeling entitled to what someone else has.
 
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For the guys saying this isn't relevant as the seller isn't operating in X or Y country so it doesn't apply.

Of course it applies. Because often the person outside the sellers country is paying for the transaction in said country. Which is why he was checking nationalities. For physical goods we do have free trade agreements.

As a Canadian I can purchase items from US retailers and have them shipped to me... paying less in many cases. Even though there is a Canadian supplier of that item here. Due to free trade I can buy those things and the Canadian retailer can't stop me, and has Zero power over my transaction with the retailer I am dealing with in the US. They can offer value in the form of local support, warranties ect... however they can not stop me from dealing with an American supplier. (and US companies that have tried to deny Canadians, based on supporting their Canadian suppliers have lost court battles).

When it comes to digital media for some reason none of those free trade laws apply... and yes it is completely silly, that they are allowed to Price gouge and protect more profitable foreign "suppliers" of their content. If it was a physical product they would have no right to behave that way.

It doesn't apply because digital content is not the same as physical goods.

Digital content can be pirated and freely distributed. If, for example, a country's law has lax copyright protections then the content provider has no incentive to move their business there. Or they might 'price gouge' to cover projected potential 'lost sales' due to those lax laws. Remember, business are in the money making game. If their product can be freely distributed without punishment (or if they can't make money from ludicrous lawsuits) then they make no money giving it away.

In your example, the company you're ordering from in the US may have more cost effective infrastructure and you're benefiting from the savings by being able to order from Canada. That's free trade. And that doesn't apply to digital content distribution.
 
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It doesn't apply because digital content is not the same as physical goods.

Digital content can be pirated and freely distributed. If, for example, a country's law has lax copyright protections then the content provider has no incentive to move their business there. Or they might 'price gouge' to cover projected potential 'lost sales' due to those lax laws. Remember, business are in the money making game. If their product can be freely distributed without punishment (or if they can't make money from ludicrous lawsuits) then they make no money giving it away.

In your example, the company you're ordering from in the US may have more cost effective infrastructure and you're benefiting from the savings by being able to order from Canada. That's free trade. And that doesn't apply to digital content distribution.

You clearly live in the US. Trust me in Canada I know from experience working for US companies with offices in Canada. They price gouge plain and simple. Yes there are increased shipping costs, and the cost of operations can be higher depending on the situation (taxes, Labour costs) however no doubt those companies that open Canadian offices do so, yes to expand into a new market, make no mistake though they see it as a market where they can increase their profit margins.

The same applies to Digital media in Canada. The major studios all see Canada as a market where they can double sell, and in almost every case sell at higher margin. Our local content distribution companies, the major Cable Television / Internet Provider / Steaming all in one companies (Telus/Rogers/Shaw/Bell) get protection from the studios who push geo locking so they can sell their content to our companies who all charge higher prices then the US alternatives. (its why so many Canadians pay for Netflix and then jump through the proxy hoops to access the US version). The streaming options provided by our distribution monopolies here all require you to be a Cable television subscriber (no kidden). So for instance they pay MORE for exclusive access to the same content that Netflix has on their US version.

Its a mess and our regulatory agency the CRTC is a joke that slaps their fingers a few times a year and nothing really changes. They get ordered to reduce a cost of something and they add some new fee elsewhere or tie price breaks they are ordered to apply to package deals ect. Geo locking is the tool they use here to ensure people are constantly paying more then they should be for content that costs far less 30 min from where most of us live in the US. :)

To give you a real idea of how crazy it is... if you have a Cable package in Canada. There are cases where say you have NBC as part of your package... where a specific show has been bought as an exclusive by some Canadian channel. They will literally replace the NBC signal for the time period when that show is on with another channel. That doesn't happen as much the last 10 years or so, still does though. It drives most Canadians nuts and I guess its likely a big part of why the Studios see Canada as a country filled with pirates. In order to see a lot of content the only choice is to have some crazy 1000 channel cable package or just steal it.
 
Also let's be clear: content providers aren't denying you anything. They want your money.

I think you misunderstand the problem a bit. The problem is not that we want access to the content and are being denied that. We have access to the content. We have the content. What we want is to PAY for the content! What we want is to get the content legally. That is what georestrictions are denying us.
To get the content we find no barriers or obstacles. It is only to pay for the content that we do. It is only when we try to give something back to creators that we get blocked and the providers say, "nah-uh, you can't give us your money. People from your location can't give us the same amount of money as US users and become legal users."

Or there are other silly problems, like when you have legally purchased the content and you leave the US for vacations and then you can't enjoy the license that you own because you happen to be somewhere else.

Or when you can't watch a commercial for the content because you are in a different country. Seriously?! They managed to find a reason to stop people from watching -promotional material for their product- that doesn't even use their bandwidth, but Youtube's? The reason I found the video so funny is not that I feel entitled to watch the commercials or to give them money. It's that not being able to do so seems so ridiculous from a business perspective.
 
That video nails it.
Americans and even the Brits won't see the problem.....Speaking to the local cable providers, most US based providers are simply not interested in providing/licensing content to other countries even when approached. Hell, I can't even buy any games from Amazon if I list my real address. It's not uncommon to pay more for a game because you're not located in the US. Content not available in your country is almost a daily occurrence on youtube, yet I can buy the mp3.p

I see the higher price to be more of tax differences than price gouging. At least in some locations. I buy global versions of games from places like Poland and crap, as it's cheaper than buying the US version.

Content not available in your country on Youtube is not a Youtube thing. It's your country that's making Youtube do it. I have to deal with that crap all the time, cause Germany's GEMA has them block music videos that isn't part of their list of artists or whatever.
 
To all that disagree about this video's horrible analogy:

I'm sorry that you feel entitled to the content that the US is producing. But it's not your call. Just because it makes total sense for everything digital to be available to everyone, at the end of the day it's business.

If I knew about the best street taco vendor operating on a street corner in Mexico, I wouldn't feel entitled to have those tacos up here in Dallas, TX (as much as I'd want them).

Similarly, I don't have any urge or want to see content from Germany, Japan, or France because I don't know what TV/Movies/Music comes out of there and if I did I wouldn't care if it's blocked in the US. Yes that's an ignorant thing to say but it's the same thing in your case. You just happen to know of the content produced in the US and you're disappointed that the content PROVIDERS are denying you something you heard about/like.

Also let's be clear: content providers aren't denying you anything. They want your money. They are simply forcing you to go through other routes to get you to consume their content (as you mentioned, you can't stream music on youtube but you can buy the MP3).

Business, business, business. Stop taking it personally and stop feeling entitled to what someone else has.

You really don't get it. Imagine, you as a US citizen not being able to buy a taco anywhere in the world... Why? .- Because your local wallmart is going to start selling tacos next year and wants a monopoly. That's what geoblocking is about, creating monopolies, and monopolies are NEVER good for consumers.
How about you not being able to go to a stadium across town to watch a game because your local stadium has bought the exclusive rights to everyone living in a 10 block radius? Your favourtie team never plays at your local stadium? Tough luck, nobody gives a f***, after all you are not entitled to be able to watch your favrourite team's games.
Being forced to buy gas at your local gas station because they secured the rights to the neighbourhood? Perhaps at a 20% markup, after all it IS more expensive to delivere there, or perhaps a market study concluded that the people living there a willing to pay 20% more.
You think that just because you live in the US this doesn't affect you? You are wrong. There are plenty of US shows on Netflix that are available worldwide but not in the US. You are being forced into monopoly sitiations just like everyone else, or are you so indoctrinated that you can't even see that? Should the hippy europeans with they privacy rights and consumer protection laws go back to europe and stop acting so entitled? The reason studios can make the type of movies/series they do today is bacause they sell worldwide, and to them you are just a dollar sign, no matter if you are american or swedish, they will suck as much as they possibly can out of you, because "Business, business, business."

Oh, and in reply to another post, downloading a torrent is like stealing. What else can you call an act of unlawfully gaining something that belongs to someone else? Next, bank robberies are victimless crimes because the money is insured!

/Edit
Penny Arcades take on the subject: Penny Arcade - Comic - Economaniacal
 
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It sort of goes both ways.
Content owners have way too much power over their content. Once they decide to sell it, it should be sold at the same price globally + tarrifs/taxes.
This does happen in the real world and it's complete shit. Just look at how medicine is sold in Canada and how people from the US would go to Canada to refill prescriptions that they would have to pay through the roof to get in the US. Some bought politicians decided to pass some laws making it illegal.
Same thing happens when you live on the border of a state with lower taxes. People will go to shop there and just bring the goods home.
Everyone wants things cheaper. If prices are artificially inflated in other countries the question is why?
Then again, who doesn't know about proxies and vpns?

Now practically all digital content is a luxury good and unlike the medicine analogy, isn't all that important. If they want to charge other countries more, then why the fuck not? It's not hurting anyone but some whiners. Make your own content if it's a problem.
 
To all that disagree about this video's horrible analogy:

I'm sorry that you feel entitled to the content that the US is producing. But it's not your call. Just because it makes total sense for everything digital to be available to everyone, at the end of the day it's business.

If I knew about the best street taco vendor operating on a street corner in Mexico, I wouldn't feel entitled to have those tacos up here in Dallas, TX (as much as I'd want them).

Similarly, I don't have any urge or want to see content from Germany, Japan, or France because I don't know what TV/Movies/Music comes out of there and if I did I wouldn't care if it's blocked in the US. Yes that's an ignorant thing to say but it's the same thing in your case. You just happen to know of the content produced in the US and you're disappointed that the content PROVIDERS are denying you something you heard about/like.

Also let's be clear: content providers aren't denying you anything. They want your money. They are simply forcing you to go through other routes to get you to consume their content (as you mentioned, you can't stream music on youtube but you can buy the MP3).

Business, business, business. Stop taking it personally and stop feeling entitled to what someone else has.


Yeah... right....

So you're a making point using Tacos to somehow invalidate my opinion on a video about digital content distribution and don't see how the video is spot with it's pastries analogy? That was rhetorical. Please don't answer that.

You're right about only one thing. I should not take it personally and the fact of the matter is... I don't.
 
You really don't get it. Imagine, you as a US citizen not being able to buy a taco anywhere in the world... Why? .- Because your local wallmart is going to start selling tacos next year and wants a monopoly. That's what geoblocking is about, creating monopolies, and monopolies are NEVER good for consumers.
How about you not being able to go to a stadium across town to watch a game because your local stadium has bought the exclusive rights to everyone living in a 10 block radius? Your favourtie team never plays at your local stadium? Tough luck, nobody gives a f***, after all you are not entitled to be able to watch your favrourite team's games.
Being forced to buy gas at your local gas station because they secured the rights to the neighbourhood? Perhaps at a 20% markup, after all it IS more expensive to delivere there, or perhaps a market study concluded that the people living there a willing to pay 20% more.
You think that just because you live in the US this doesn't affect you? You are wrong. There are plenty of US shows on Netflix that are available worldwide but not in the US. You are being forced into monopoly sitiations just like everyone else, or are you so indoctrinated that you can't even see that? Should the hippy europeans with they privacy rights and consumer protection laws go back to europe and stop acting so entitled? The reason studios can make the type of movies/series they do today is bacause they sell worldwide, and to them you are just a dollar sign, no matter if you are american or swedish, they will suck as much as they possibly can out of you, because "Business, business, business."

Oh, and in reply to another post, downloading a torrent is like stealing. What else can you call an act of unlawfully gaining something that belongs to someone else? Next, bank robberies are victimless crimes because the money is insured!

/Edit
Penny Arcades take on the subject: Penny Arcade - Comic - Economaniacal

I get what you're saying and you're making excellent points on the monopoly of the business.

But you're still equating physical goods/services to digital ones in your argument. That is where your logic breaks down. When you mention not being able to buy a taco ANYWHERE in the world, that's flawed logic. Content providers, for example, make TV shows. They are not banning you from ALL TV shows. Just the specific ones they make. I hate to sound like a broken record but digital =/= physical.

It's a different animal and it will only take some decades for laws to catch up since no one in power actually knows how the internet works.

At the end of it, digital content distributors are simply trying to protect their product and things like price gouging and outright blocking is for their interest, not yours. Again, digital content can be pirated and freely distributed. If the provider can't make money from protecting their IP then why would they have any incentive to move their business to some countries?
 
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Being able to virtually visit a Steam catalog in a poorer country than mine and pay their price sounds great, but in reality it would eventually bankrupt the system. It sucks, but I get it. Also, why do I deserve to benefit from some other country's contract with a digital provider? Would I love US Netflix? Of course. But I understand why I don't get access to it in Canada without cheating the system.
This is exactly what an importer does though, buys or produces a good in a place with lower costs of production then sells it in a place where they can realize a profit.

I see absolutely no line of reasoning where being your own digital importer could be frowned upon in any moral sense. This is the very basis of a globalized economy. The only difference here is that the barrier to entry for becoming your own importer is extremely low, instead of leasing an office and warehouse to handle ordering and inventory in a foreign country, you only need to lease access to a server through which to route your orders.
 
Oh, and in reply to another post, downloading a torrent is like stealing. What else can you call an act of unlawfully gaining something that belongs to someone else? Next, bank robberies are victimless crimes because the money is insured!

So lets look at the legal definition of theft

Theft, in law, a general term covering a variety of specific types of stealing, including the crimes of larceny, robbery, and burglary. Theft is defined as the physical removal of an object that is capable of being stolen without the consent of the owner and with the intention of depriving the owner of it permanently.

Robbing a bank may result in the money being replaced by insurance, but it's not the same money, and it takes time (and its not guaranteed).

If your local Walmart did get those amazing tacos and I pirated that taco, would you be deprived of that taco in anyway?

It is a different paradigm that history has never had to deal with, up until several decades ago. There is no historical precedence for it.
 
Digital goods have complexities that many physical goods do not. Most digital goods are subject to local censorship and licensing laws. Materials produced for the USA audience may violate these laws, making it a crime to just distribute the materials without special modification. Examples of this include the bans on Swastikas in Germany, restrictions on nudity or sex in Muslim countries, restrictions on violence in some European countries, etc. For movies there are also complicated licensing agreements for high production cost movies where the rights for foreign distribution might be owned by another company than the one who owns the material in the USA. Games also need to meet local requirements. People want to live in some open unicorn and fairy dust world that doesn't take into account the realities of global distribution in a world with hundreds of unique government bureaucracies.
 
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It is interesting to note that companies can take advantage of the global economy to source cheaper goods and services by taking advantage of lower labor rates and currency values however individuals are restricted from doing the same.
For physical goods there is at least some semblance of balance due to the cost of shipping physical goods and the restrictions such as customs, taxes, and duties to move items from place to place.
For digital goods however, the cost is based on the fixed development cost and the ongoing costs for distribution and support. In general the distribution cost is very low per unit and for larger companies support is automated or non-existent.
Everyone wants their cut of the pie and it turns into a game of rent seeking - this would balance itself out if it wasn't for the creation of strong intellectual property laws and geoblocking.
If a potential customer had the option to digitally download a DRM-free CD from a reputable Chinese retailer for $0.30 USD or a reputable US retailer for $11.00 USD with the cost differences due to local economic factors, the customer would choose the Chinese source every time.
 
So lets look at the legal definition of theft



Robbing a bank may result in the money being replaced by insurance, but it's not the same money, and it takes time (and its not guaranteed).

If your local Walmart did get those amazing tacos and I pirated that taco, would you be deprived of that taco in anyway?

It is a different paradigm that history has never had to deal with, up until several decades ago. There is no historical precedence for it.

Quoting some definition of the word "theft" does not disprove, or even adress my point. I said that downloading a pirated torrent is LIKE stealing. "Traditional" theft of a physical item has 2 compenents:
1. You take something that does not belong to you.
2. You make another suffer a loss.

Absence of (2) does not make (1) either lawfull or morally acceptable. Never mind arguments of theoretical losses due to "lost sales", an act of copying something makes the "thing" more common. In our economy becoming more common devalues the "thing", therefore it's very hard to argue that both components are not present in digital piracy.

This is in no way a new problem. Nonphysical "things" have been stolen for ages. After all, if you can steal knowledge or an idea, you can most certainly steal a digital copy of a movie.
What about identity theft? You may not even know it has been stolen until you one day find out that you have another wife, 3 children and a mortgage loan on the other side of the country.

Geoblocking is the consequence of a struggling TV industry forcing on us an inferior product for an overinflated price. For the price of my TV subscription I could have Netflix, HBO and pretty much every other content provider out there, and I don't even watch TV!
 
Digital goods have complexities that many physical goods do not. Most digital goods are subject to local censorship and licensing laws. Materials produced for the USA audience may violate these laws, making it a crime to just distribute the materials without special modification. Examples of this include the bans on Swastikas in Germany, restrictions on nudity or sex in Muslim countries, restrictions on violence in some European countries, etc. For movies there are also complicated licensing agreements for high production cost movies where the rights for foreign distribution might be owned by another company than the one who owns the material in the USA. Games also need to meet local requirements. People want to live in some open unicorn and fairy dust world that doesn't take into account the realities of global distribution in a world with hundreds of unique government bureaucracies.


This is the first sensible point I've read against International content distribution but even it doesn't completely cater for the sometimes massive price disparity which was highlighted in the video.
 
This is exactly what an importer does though, buys or produces a good in a place with lower costs of production then sells it in a place where they can realize a profit.

I see absolutely no line of reasoning where being your own digital importer could be frowned upon in any moral sense. This is the very basis of a globalized economy. The only difference here is that the barrier to entry for becoming your own importer is extremely low, instead of leasing an office and warehouse to handle ordering and inventory in a foreign country, you only need to lease access to a server through which to route your orders.

I don't disagree with you. But importing is filled with laws, taxes and tariffs (that took years to develop) to protect against "unfair" competition from cheaper foreign options (and many other issues). The guidelines are already in place for a company to start doing physical product imports, without needing to worry about future legal ramifications. Digital importing could easily and quickly happen in terms of setup, but the red tape will take many years. Until then, geo-blocking is the unfortunate reality.
 
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