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.
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Socialized Medicine in Australia
Sydney Hospital (cc photo by tobym)
An Australian who follows American political debates closely weighs in with a description of the joys of socialized medicine as practiced in the antipodes:
We have a wonderful balance here in Australia. If you need health care and can’t afford it, you can get it. Everyone can get it. There are a multitude of doctors who bulk bill. And you can use the public hospital system. But if you have a little more money, you can choose the extra cover. The government doesn’t decide what access I have- they just set a level of access, and everything beyond, I have to pay for.
Is that “rationing”? Perhaps. But at least we all have access to pretty good basic cover. At least a major illness will not bankrupt us. But, at the same time, if we have access to the extra funds, we can use them and pay for extra cover. [...] I am thankful for a system in which I can access a basic level of care regardless of my income, where I can choose to spend additional funds if I have them available, and where I have both public and private hospital options. For that, I’m happy to pay an extra $1.50 tax for every $100 I earn. It’s worth it.
I think these are really important points. Conservatives seem extremely worried about the possibility that the United States will implement rules that prevent people from paying for health care out of pocket or from acquiring private insurance. But no such proposals are on the table. A system that combines a government guarantee of coverage for certain things with governmental unwillingness to pay for certain other things doesn’t preclude the possibility that people will choose to pay for them. Here in the United States we have public schools and people also take violin lessons.
Waxman-Markey Bearing Fruit Abroad
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (official photo)
No U.S. climate bill, no matter how tough, will really make a dent in global climate patterns on its own. Rather, the hope is that passage of a decent climate bill domestically will, like Europe’s earlier adoption of a cap-and-trade scheme, be part of an iterative international process moving toward an international accord and global action. And via Ryan Avent, some evidence from down under that it’s working. Per Reuters:
Australia’s emissions trading laws look more likely to pass a hostile Senate after U.S. Congressional support for a similar climate bill eroded political opposition in Australia to carbon trading.
One can only imagine that a bill that actually passes the Senate and gets signed by the President would do even more good. And of course this is a road that goes in multiple directions. Any positive action from the Chinese, even if mild, would make good climate measures more politically palatable in the U.S. and Europe. And the Chinese are, in turn, more likely to act when they see a more-or-less united West acting in good faith on this issue.
The Geithner Put: Good for Australia
Lefty Australian economist John Quiggin is, like most left-of-center economists, pretty dubious about the Geithner plan for the banks. But, crucially, he sees it as good for Australia:
There is an even more fundamental assumption underlying the Geithner Plan. Geithner, like Larry Summers, Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson, is deeply committed to Wall Street and its economic model. Their plans are based on the assumption that, when the crisis is over, everything will return to ‘normal’ as this term has been defined for the past thirty years, with a global financial system dominated by financial institutions like Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
The resort to yet another publicly provided put option reflects this thinking. Just as with the ‘Greenspan put’ and the ‘Bernanke put’ that created the crisis, the assumption is that governments must support the financial sector at all costs.
On the Geithner is view, some new regulations may be needed, but contrary to the rhetoric of the Obama campaign, real change is neither possible nor desirable. By contrast, Kevin Rudd has recognised that the financial crisis signals a ‘seismic’ change in the economic organisation of capitalism, even if not all his government’s policies reflect this.
What does the Geithner plan mean for Australia? On the whole, it is probably a positive. The fact that it is a bad deal for US taxpayers is less important to us than the magnitude of the stimulus involved. And the decline of confidence in the US dollar, while not helpful to exporters competing with US suppliers, will probably make allow the Australian government, and Australian banks, to borrow on more favorable terms.
Maybe the White House economic team is being secretly controlled by an Australian email list? Someone from RedState or the Glenn Beck show ought to look into this; I feel the right needs to update its conspiracy theories.
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