EU Internet Chief Regrets Lack of Netflix-Type Sites

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The European Union's digital agenda commissioner says the EU needs more Netflix-type sites. Wasn't this the woman that headed up the sanctions against Microsoft, Intel and Apple? Maybe she can sue someone to get Netflix? :D

Europe is falling behind the United States in online entertainment services such as the popular US on-demand film website Netflix due to stringent copyright rules, the EU's Internet chief said Tuesday. Neelie Kroes, the European Union's digital agenda commissioner, said current rules mean that the music and video industry in the 27-nation bloc is fragmented with no pan-European version of Netflix.
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Steve, that is so true...why on earth would Netflix want to deal with EU's crap...they don't like a U.S companies business practices then they just fine them an ungodly amount.
 
Actually, the reason for not having Netflix or Amazon MP3 or iTunes on EU scale is IFPI and the movie/tv equivalent - they set different rules for each and every country, and it is simply not worth the extra work it brings. The reason why it works in USA is because it is a one huge market with one set of rules. Europe is same size market, but with 27 different rules, all being a result of the IFPI child organizations.

By the way, when they complain about piracy - do you guys in USA pay extra copyright tax for every HDD. CD, DVD, dvd burner, computer, laptop,... due to the fact, that you could use it for piracy ? Again, result of IFPI & their stupid children.
 
faugusztin said:
Actually, the reason for not having Netflix or Amazon MP3 or iTunes on EU scale is IFPI and the movie/tv equivalent - they set different rules for each and every country, and it is simply not worth the extra work it brings. The reason why it works in USA is because it is a one huge market with one set of rules. Europe is same size market, but with 27 different rules, all being a result of the IFPI child organizations.

By the way, when they complain about piracy - do you guys in USA pay extra copyright tax for every HDD. CD, DVD, dvd burner, computer, laptop,... due to the fact, that you could use it for piracy ? Again, result of IFPI & their stupid children.
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This is absolutely correct. However, if memory serves me right, we pay the same "tax" just in hidden form to the RIAA and such for burn-able CDs and burners.
 
So do I, but the EU would just turn around and fine the site for using copyrighted material while pirates have free range in most of Europe.
 
You litigate against "monopolies" and then cry when you don't have common services across the various nations of the EU with the various labyrinths of red tape and ways of providing services.

You made your bed, sleep in it.
 
Monkey God said:
You litigate against "monopolies" and then cry when you don't have common services across the various nations of the EU with the various labyrinths of red tape and ways of providing services.

You made your bed, sleep in it.
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+1 on this.
 
@TheWeazmeister: If only in price of audio CDs and CD/DVD burners, then you are lucky. It's 3% or 6% in my country, and that includes hard drives, flash drives, all empty media, CD/DVD burners, computers. And i can even call myself lucky - in Czech republic they even pay for printers (you can copy printed works using the scanner & printer). And they have a crazy calculation for hard drives as well. They pay $0.00907/GB for every hard drive bellow 1TB, or $9.07 for the 1 TB + $0.006 for every GB over the 1TB. That means $21 in tax for IFPI&co from one 3TB hard drive.

But back to the topic - as i said, the reason for not having services like Netflix in Europe is because of the copyright owners made such a mess. And funnily enough, the copyright owners are usually the same as in USA.
 
TheWeazmeister said:
This is absolutely correct. However, if memory serves me right, we pay the same "tax" just in hidden form to the RIAA and such for burn-able CDs and burners.
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Canadia does, but not the US. There are however patented technologies used in media and players/recorders where royalties go to patent pool members and in a more unique situation (because it also owns music/movie entertainment companies), to Sony. There isn't a media tax per se in the US that goes to artists like many other countries have.
 
My family back in the UK would love something like Netflix, when they visited they couldn't believe how cheap it was, and how much you could watch for a set monthly fee.
 
Outamyhead said:
My family back in the UK would love something like Netflix, when they visited they couldn't believe how cheap it was, and how much you could watch for a set monthly fee.
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For starters i would like something like iTunes as well :). Yes, Apple ignores the "global EU market" thing and doesn't allow anyone to buy music or other media content in new Euro or EU countries. And when they will get a fine for ignoring that law/directive, it will be again EU fault that Apple ignores the laws.
 
Couldn't you jsut tunnel your traffic to make it appear as if you are connecting from the US? I don't get it, what's the big deal?
 
canna said:
Couldn't you jsut tunnel your traffic to make it appear as if you are connecting from the US? I don't get it, what's the big deal?
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Nope, these services are well protected, and some are even terminate your account if they detect usage of VPN for buying stuff (for example Valve does this with Steam).

Plus what is the point of getting the music or movies officially, when you have to cheat and lie anyway to get to it at all. How is it different than pirating the music or movies directly ?

My point was about that "sue someone" part. You don't play by the rules, you get punished. You like to protect and not punish american companies ? Have fun doing that, but don't scream and cry when for same unlawful act the american companies get punished elsewhere.
 
pxc said:
Canadia does, but not the US. There are however patented technologies used in media and players/recorders where royalties go to patent pool members and in a more unique situation (because it also owns music/movie entertainment companies), to Sony. There isn't a media tax per se in the US that goes to artists like many other countries have.
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No, he's right. There is a hidden piracy tax on writable "audio" CDs, "data" CD-R's aren't subject to this tax. Same tax applies to standalone CD recorders/duplicators. PC "burners" are not subject to this tax.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00001004----000-.html
 
Argh, no edit.
The music/audio CD and burner tax is only 3%, I'd actually be entirely willing to pay a 3% premium on my storage media if I could then infringe any copyrights I wished (which is basically what that statute provides). On a $70 2TB HDD that's only $2.10 in tax. I figure even with pretty decent bitrates you could get 200,000 songs on there, that's like 0.001 cents per track.
 
It's a bit ironical that copyright protection laws in effect block the Netflix business model in Europe, when Netflix (voluntarily paid by the consumer) does more to fight piracy than any costly legal measure such as 3-strike and trials, paid by the citizen.
I still think they should come to Europe, maybe starting on the big markets like Germany, France, Britain, all of which have their own Amazon subsidiaries too. It would pave the way for a true unique European legislation when jealous neighbor countries also want to join in the fun.

The only non-artificial difference with the U.S. is the number of languages, but that would be a huge improvement for the U.S. too. It is one single market, but it is also a Babylon of languages, and many American customers would love to watch movies online with a choice of audio and subtitle tracks, instead of the unique hard-coded choice, which is English audio. It wouldn't be difficult technically to let the customer select his choice of language tracks, and have the servers prepare the stream on-demand appropriately.
 
Steve said:
The European Union's digital agenda commissioner says the EU needs more Netflix-type sites. Wasn't this the woman that headed up the sanctions against Microsoft, Intel and Apple? Maybe she can sue someone to get Netflix? :D
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EU is one of the best things that have happened, but there comes some real crazy stuff from them from time to time.
But for consumers they have done alot, we need them to please us and piss us off. :p
 
Kueller said:
No, he's right. There is a hidden piracy tax on writable "audio" CDs, "data" CD-R's aren't subject to this tax. Same tax applies to standalone CD recorders/duplicators. PC "burners" are not subject to this tax.
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No, Title 17 § 1001-1010 were added by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. It taxed Digital Audio Tapes (DAT) and recorders. The AHRA was the main reason DAT failed in the marketplace.

It was not a general tax on media, so I was right... unless you happen to use DATs for some reason. ;)
 
pxc said:
No, Title 17 § 1001-1010 were added by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. It taxed Digital Audio Tapes (DAT) and recorders. The AHRA was the main reason DAT failed in the marketplace.

It was not a general tax on media, so I was right... unless you happen to use DATs for some reason. ;)
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Though I don't doubt your comment, this following specifically states that monies are collected for digital recording devices and media. Not just DATs.

What is AHRA and where does the money come from?

These are payments that were created from the enactment of the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) by the US Congress.

The AHRA imposes an obligation on importers and manufacturers of digital audio recording devices and media to submit a royalty payment set by statute to the Register of Copyrights. The AHRA provides that 66 2/3% of those royalties shall be allocated to a Sound Recordings Fund. The Act further provides that 2 5/8 % of the Sound Recordings Fund shall be placed in an escrow account managed by an Independent Administrator appointed by the AFM, and the record companies, to be distributed to non-featured musicians who have performed on sound recordings distributed in the United States, and that 1 3/8 % shall be similarly placed in an escrow account managed by an Independent Administrator appointed by AFTRA, and the record companies and distributed to non-featured vocalists.
http://www.ahra.org/audio/faqs.html
 
Digital audio recording media are different than storage media. If you buy CD-Rs for data purposes, no tax, if you buy CD-Rs for music, yes tax. At least that's how I understood it. Of course you can use a CD-R for either task no matter what it says on the box, so only the uninformed pay extra for music-labeled discs. I imagine there's something similar for DVDs, but what I remember was from the CD era.


But what I really wanted to post: The EU is going to be disappointed when American movies and TV shows dominate everyone's lists over there :p .
 
EODetroit said:
Digital audio recording media are different than storage media. If you buy CD-Rs for data purposes, no tax, if you buy CD-Rs for music, yes tax. At least that's how I understood it. Of course you can use a CD-R for either task no matter what it says on the box, so only the uninformed pay extra for music-labeled discs. I imagine there's something similar for DVDs, but what I remember was from the CD era.
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There is no difference in EU, you pay the same for both (and hard drives and flash drives and other stuff too).

EODetroit said:
But what I really wanted to post: The EU is going to be disappointed when American movies and TV shows dominate everyone's lists over there :p .
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They already do.
 
TheWeazmeister said:
The AHRA imposes an obligation on importers and manufacturers of digital audio
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At the time the AHRA of 1992 was passed, the royalties applied to DAT media and DAT recorders. No tax was levied on CD, BD, tapes or other media. Sorry if that is still not clear to you.
 
Chimel said:
It's a bit ironical that copyright protection laws in effect block the Netflix business model in Europe, when Netflix (voluntarily paid by the consumer) does more to fight piracy than any costly legal measure such as 3-strike and trials, paid by the citizen.
I still think they should come to Europe, maybe starting on the big markets like Germany, France, Britain, all of which have their own Amazon subsidiaries too. It would pave the way for a true unique European legislation when jealous neighbor countries also want to join in the fun.

The only non-artificial difference with the U.S. is the number of languages, but that would be a huge improvement for the U.S. too. It is one single market, but it is also a Babylon of languages, and many American customers would love to watch movies online with a choice of audio and subtitle tracks, instead of the unique hard-coded choice, which is English audio. It wouldn't be difficult technically to let the customer select his choice of language tracks, and have the servers prepare the stream on-demand appropriately.
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Couldnt agree more
 
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