Restricting Digital Content Down Under
I had just sort of casually assumed without thinking much about it that one important consequence of the rise of digital media would be to radically reduce the importance of place in terms of consumption of a lot of cultural products. And I suppose it still has, but apparently to a lesser extent than I realized until I read this post from Erin Riley:
That’s right. Hulu, like many other digital content websites, is restricted by region. The site determines the country you are browsing from, based on your IP address, and simply doesn’t let you watch it if you’re outside the United States. Once again, as an Australian viewer, I was left with two options: download the show illegally (since it wasn’t available to purchase on the very limited Australian iTunes store), or pay $100 for the DVDs.
It’s not an uncommon experience for those of us who live- and access the internet- from outside the US. And it’s not just Hulu- music sites like Pandora and Spotify, and television stations also restrict their content.
It’s all about licensing. Australian channels buy the exclusive right to air a program in Australia. This exclusivity prevents the content being available online to its audience without its explicit permission. While deals between US networks and online content providers are generally easier to negotiate, because the content would only be available online after it airs, significantly later air dates in Australia mean the commercial networks risk being trumped by online channels. In some cases, shows are made available to purchase on iTunes only after their Australian air date- sometimes more than a year after they’ve aired in the US. The time constraints, though, that hardly explains the music stations: in that case, I suspect it’s a matter of the difficulties in obtaining the necessary licensing far outweighing the benefits.
Seems bad. Also note that the success corporations have in executing this kind of segmenting and curtailing of the internet has not-so-great implications for the general idea that digital media will undermine repressive states.
32 Responses to “Restricting Digital Content Down Under”
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August 17th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
You know, I think anti-free speech persecutions in places like Australia, Europe, and Canada (or America, for that matter) would be of more importance, but those seldom seem to bother Matt.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Those ‘not-so-great implications’ are undermined just a bit by the fact that “download the show illegally” is one of the options available to the Australian…
August 17th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I live in Costa Rica, and frequently come up against this same thing. The oddest one was a *Russian* TV show that was uploaded to YouTube… but was “unavailable for viewing in [my] country.”
August 17th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Hey Matt – on a similar note, here is a Facebook page Free Jon Stewart! Free Stephen Colbert!! by some friends in Paris…
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=94829305988&ref=ts
all the best,
kevin
August 17th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
A little closer to home, I know that this is also a big issue in Canada.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
You know, I think that the fact that I can’t call walk down the street shouting “nigger,” “chink,” “wetback,” and “camel-fucker” without getting into trouble would be of more importance, but that seldom seems to bother Matt.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Also note that the success corporations have in executing this kind of segmenting and curtailing of the internet has not-so-great implications for the general idea that digital media will undermine repressive states.
Why does Matt hate people who live in repressive states? Because they’re in the pay of the CIA? Because they might someday attempt a color revolution?
August 17th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I’m not sure there is a high level of equivalence between Hulu blocking access to the media it hosts and a repressive government blocking access to information or means of communication it deems dangerous to let its citizens possess.
Each can certainly be done, but it is a question of blocking access to a particular site vs access to a particular piece of information. When you speak of the success corporations have had protecting content, it is a mistake to only think about Hulu being able to block access from those outside of the US. Also consider the general problems of digital media piracy. After all, you can’t watch Arrested Development in Australia on Hulu, but I’m willing to bet you could find a way to watch it through less legitimate channels.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
How hard is it to use a proxy and spoof your IP? I mean, really, quit being lazy!
August 17th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Yes, many YouTube videos have this restriction, as does The Daily Show website’s ‘full episode viewer’. But Matt is correct in one sense: it is quite easy to make your Internet connection appear to be coming from a different country than it actually is, using the same technology that is used by Chinese and Iranian websurfers to escape their countries’ Internet censorship whims.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
The BBC iPlayer allows worldwide access to all BBC radio shows, except its retransmission of the Bob Dylan Theme Time show, and none of its tv shows.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Calipygian,
The whole proxy thing is a lot trickier than it sounds, I tried doing when my workplace was banning a lot of sites and I never really got it to work (I was working at a high school and using the comps during break time, so I didn’t feel too bad about trying to evade the system). I realize it’s a bit different game, but my guess is that most web pages with geographic restrictions also block access from “known” proxies. So you have to find proxies that are unknown to the site operators.
And since you’re probably doing something illegal at that point anyway, why not just download the torrent?
August 17th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
This is only a problem if you assume that anything that’s available to anyone anywhere should also be available to you on the same basis.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Spotify is offlimits to Americans, which is why it has grown steadily under the radar of most US-based tech watchers.
Getting to the BBC iPlayer really means paying for a UK-based VPS. I did it during the Olympics to watch some events live when NBC was tape-delaying,
You sometimes get situations where rights are granted to discrete entities for discrete territories, there are “dead zones” where there are no rightsholders, but also an IP block. I’ve always wondered whether it might be possible for someone to buy the rights to, say, Big Ten college football broadcasts in Uzbekistan for $10 and change if they made an offer.
In fact, digital availability has generally shortened both to-air time for imported broadcasts and DVD release schedules for both home and domestic output. The DVD will be on the shelves within days of a season ending, instead of months; movies and TV shows will appear on foreign broadcasters within weeks. The days of being 6-12 months behind the US in terms of film/TV are pretty much over. As others have said, if it’s not available through paid or official (ad-supported) online sources, people will get the torrent, not because it’s free, but because it’s less hassle.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Once again, as an Australian viewer, I was left with two options: download the show illegally (since it wasn’t available to purchase on the very limited Australian iTunes store), or pay $100 for the DVDs.
Er…you can’t rent DVDs in Australia?
August 17th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
When you say, “not-so-great implications for the general idea that digital media will undermine repressive states,” you really mean commercial digital media. Pirated digital media, as with old analog media, will always play some role. Maybe not a good one, though. Paramilitaries in Yugoslavia used to split their time watching pirated Rambo movies…and burning villages.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
I find the time limitation on Hulu downloads makes it unwatchable anyway.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
huh? You mean the fact that there’s only a few episodes for any show up at a time, and the rotate? I haven’t noticed any other “time” limitations.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Seems bad. Also note that the success corporations have in executing this kind of segmenting and curtailing of the internet has not-so-great implications for the general idea that digital media will undermine repressive states.
For some reason, not being able to watch an entertainment show online before it has been broadcast(by networks who paid for broadcast rights) in another country does not equate to repressive states restricting access to information.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Also note that the success corporations have in executing this kind of segmenting and curtailing of the internet has not-so-great implications for the general idea that digital media will undermine repressive states.
Hardly. We’re talking about restricting the legal availability of certain shows. To really repress the availability of information requires being able to enforce laws preventing illegal transfers. The types of media that would undermine repressive states are almost certainly illegal in said states to begin with.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:00 am
This issue also plays out big time with live sports. I would pay (and happily do pay) cash money to watch live tennis – most majour tournaments now are streamed, either through the tournament itself (Australian Open, Wimbledon) or via a pooled arrangement (Tennis TV for Masters 1000 events, etc).
But domestic TV providers have negotiated a patchwork quilt blocking of streams which varies from tournament to tournament. And these same TV companies then provided limited or no internet streaming of their own. I don’t mind paying Wimbledon to pay TSN or ESPN; I do object to TSN or ESPN saying “you can’t watch Wimbledon because you live here, but we won’t provide you with a comparable service.”
And yes, I can find often alternative free streams, but they’re much poorer quality and less reliable.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Re: John: “Er…you can’t rent DVDs in Australia?”
What makes you think that all DVDs are available here in the first place to even be able to rent if buying is not possible? Not all DVDs are released here. I can think of a number of movies and TV shows that I would like but the only place to have access to actual DVDs is to buy them online through amazon etc, but that is tricky with the region locking. I do have a multi regional player, but these things never last forever and I can’t assume that I will always have access to a player that is multi-regional. Which means one day I’d end up with a bunch of DVDs I can’t even use because they’re not the right region for my replacement player.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:42 am
that particular horse left the barn when we allowed region coding for DVDs.
Both of which we ought to ban for free trade reasons.
August 18th, 2009 at 4:06 am
“do have a multi regional player, but these things never last forever and I can’t assume that I will always have access to a player that is multi-regional.”
Computer, Linux, and libdvdcss2. Will last forever. Nearly all my DVDs are foreign.
August 18th, 2009 at 7:03 am
If it were up to me, governments would not play an active role in helping media corporations with outdated business models secure their profitability with unnecessary legal barriers. But I won’t draw a straight line between this and “suppression of free speech.”
What I will say is that region restrictions, slow-rollout release dates, and out-of-control pricing have cumulatively eliminated any hesitation I might’ve once had to download stuff, and to seek out alternative content that’s available for free. In my case (and no doubt thousands of others) this translates as hundreds of dollars every year that they could’ve gotten from me that they don’t.
It’s the sort of problem the “free market” could actually sort out, if it actually existed. But when governments are willing intervene on behalf of companies that are too big, clunky, and corrupt to adapt to shifting circumstances, there’s not much benefit for anyone. It’s not hard to come up with examples that have a much bigger impact on our lives than TV show release dates.
August 18th, 2009 at 9:00 am
I live in Chile, and the same Hulu/Daily Show/Colbert Report restrictions exist (for full episodes, anyways). The DS/CR situation is particularly silly, as I can watch a show by individual segments but not the whole episode.
Moreover, one might understand the whole licensing issue if we had a channel showing this stuff in cable, but as far as I can tell many of these shows (this is for sure true for DS/CR) are not even available anyways, and I can’t imagine a comedy show based on the minutia of US politics taking over the valuable late night spot in a spanish-speaking country with its own problems. Lost in translation and who the hell cares and all that.
This whole situation is another example of DVD regions/DRM solutioneering from the part of brilliant media executives.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Well, I assumed the DVDs were available to buy because she said, as I quoted:
So she could pay $100 for the DVDs. That suggests that the DVD is available for purchase, doesn’t it?
August 18th, 2009 at 10:32 am
The same restrictions apply in Canada. Canadian stations buy the broadcast/cable rights and get the online rights as well. For most programming if you go to the right Canadian channel’s website you can still find the show you’re looking for, but it makes following other people’s links a bitch.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I assume she meant she could pay $100 to import the DVDs from another country.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
That’s what makes no sense to me – we still live in a world where physical and digital distribution play by different rules. I can take my American credit card and buy British CDs/DVDs on Amazon.co.uk, or German CDs/DVDs on Amazon.de. But I can’t download a track from itunes UK or iTunes Germany without a credit card from that country, or a gift card. Who really gains by that arrangement? Other than DHL obviously.
August 18th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
As an Australian fan of The Daily Show I sometimes encounter the requirement to be in the U.S. The legals need to sort themselves out before they’re made obsolete by the illegals.
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:04 am
“So she could pay $100 for the DVDs. That suggests that the DVD is available for purchase, doesn’t it?”
But where does it say they could be bought physically in Australia? DVDs can still be bought for $100 by buying them online, which is then just going to make my whole last comment be repeated about the region locking.