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EU plan to ban geoblocking will lead to dull content, warn film-makers (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago by Skavau@kbin.social to c/television@kbin.social

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Allowing streaming between borders will result in films ‘aiming for lowest common denominator of human experience’

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[–] PotentialProblem@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The core argument of “it’ll reduce the quality of films” seems to be nonsense. Unless I’m missing a crucial piece of context here. Filmmakers are already heavily incentivized to target the lowest common denominator. Today their film can be licensed to multiple distributors, one or more in each country. So, if they wanted to make as much return as possible, they’re going to target as wide as audience as possible.

What this would do is hurt the local distributors in those countries. Films would be licensed to companies who have a strong presence in all of the affected countries, instead of many distributors that are only prevalent in one. I assume this would lead to Netflix and Amazon getting the largest share.

I’d be interested if people in Europe find the current system to be a significant hassle or not.

[–] Skavau@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I’d be interested if people in Europe find the current system to be a significant hassle or not.

It just means people pirate. This really should've been solved some time ago. A TV show being accessible does not inherently mean that it must be streamed, it could be a digital download. This is why a Steam storefront-type setup should exist for TV with no blocks. You can buy any TV show you like, £10-15 a season (prices could vary obviously) and it's yours. Netflix and Amazon and Disney etc would exist alongside it as streamers. Or the EU should've thought about a pan-european streaming service.

The European Parliament should've just alternatively done this.

If you refuse to make your TV show legally accessible either to stream or to download for a certain country, piracy of that show within that country should be legal

[–] PotentialProblem@sh.itjust.works 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ah thanks for the context! I was thinking this might be the case.

Interesting point on digital downloads. I hadn’t thought of that aspect.

Would you say you’d be in support of legislation that’s something along the lines of what’s being proposed?

[–] Skavau@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

I would support the end of all geoblocks, or the legalisation of piracy for shows unaccessible to particular countries (for the citizens within)