9 ms·

E.U. Agrees to Cross-Border Access to Streaming Services

131 points by perseusprime11 10y ago

smegger001 10y ago
"Your ad blocker is interfering with the operation of this site. Please disable it or whitelist this site. Thank you. " ---variety.com "Your ads are security risk to my system. Please prove they are safe or allow my blocker." --- me
- UweSchmidt 10y ago
  No problems here with uBlock Origin and uMatrix.
  - tr1ck5t3r 10y ago
    Have you set up your firewalls to check whats going out? When I have used ad blockers before, whilst they get rid of the adverts, the ones I have been using have still be reporting back to Google, which I don't want either. Setting your firewall to Reject all outgoing traffic except what you allow, is the fastest way to browse the web. If you set your firewall to Drop the packets it can take ages to load a web page. VPN's are useless as I suspect all NATO countries have oversight of the traffic passing over their networks, and despite a charade that NATO countries don't share intelligence, do you really and truly believe that? Maybe the politicians don't know, but I would never trust a Govt that operates in secret!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
roesel 10y ago
Definitely a move in a good direction. I wonder how long until this actually "happens". Does anyone know? With these things it always seems like they are done until you realize some pushback from the industry stopped it in its tracks.
- mtgx 10y ago
  From the article: > The online service providers will have nine months to adapt to the new rules, which means will come into force by the beginning of 2018.
jfaucett 10y ago
This is huge. This is the reason why my wife and I ditched Netflix and other streaming services we've tried. I'm guessing a lot of Europeans are like us, spend significant time living and working in other countries or at least have family members in various other countries which you visit a couple times a year. And not being able to access content you're paying when you're on a vacation in France, or visiting Family in Poland over Christmas, and especially not in the all the languages you know are available on the platform is the most annoying pain point. Of course we live on the German / French border now and previously on the German / Poland one, so maybe I'm just an outlier here and this isn't such a big deal...
- song 10y ago
  I actually enjoyed the fact that with netflix I'd get different choices of movies and shows every time I'd cross a border... It kept their library a bit more interesting :) That said I fully support this decision. It's a good move for the EU and I have no love for the MPAA and the Europe's movie and TV industry.
  - jfaucett 10y ago
    When did you have that? When we tried Netflix it simply wasnt accessible outside the country.
    - aquilaFiera 10y ago
      Netflix launched globally in January 2015. With the exception of a few countries (like China, North Korea, Syria, and a few others) Netflix is available world wide now. The catalog still varies by country though but nearly all of the Netflix Originals are available world wide.
      - Freak_NL 10y ago
        Yeah, right now Netflix is available to you basically everywhere, but the regional licensing means you get to see only the content available in the country you are presently in, not where you are a subscriber. Of course, to prevent customers from pretending to be somewhere else, VPN access is mostly blocked now.
matt4077 10y ago
Note that while certainly a step in the right direction, this is unfortunately not what I expected from the headline. Specifically, it still allows market segmentation by country, i. e. if your country of residence is Germany, a streaming service aimed at the Irish market may still refuse to do business with you. The change is only that, if you have a subscription to the streaming service from Ireland, you will still be able to access it when you travel to Croatia (or any other EU country). It reminds me of mobile phone & data roaming rules, which use the same pattern. There, I'm more understanding of the need for continued market segmentation: If you'd require Romanian telco operators to extend their offers to citizen of Luxembourg with its dramatically higher cost of living, the market would obviously become unstable rather rapidly. With streaming, the same dynamic may be at play – possibly to the degree requiring this arrangement. But personally, I'm interested less in taking advantage of lower prices in other markets, but getting access to content that providers currently don't offer in my market. Not sure if the situation has improved, but last I checked streaming services often did not even have the english-language originals. I ain't going to go back to dubbed TV. Let's hope more countries use their EU membership as mostly-wisely as the Irish did and quickly catch up economically. (That'll solve not my TV troubles, but should also greatly diminish those fears of EU immigrants. Note how silly it'd sound to warn against the poor Irish dragging down France today, even though it was a theme when Ireland joined the EU)
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  > The change is only that, if you have a subscription to the streaming service from Ireland, you will still be able to access it when you travel to Croatia (or any other EU country). So you want to force people to do business together by using the power of the law aka State violence? Shouldn't trade and labour be a voluntary thing? I thought we agreed on the immorality of the idea of forced labour a while ago.
  - MatekCopatek 10y ago
    You're not forcing anyone to do anything. You're just giving them additional requirements. I don't see how that's any more forceful from any other regulation you have to respect in order to run a legal business.
roesel 10y ago
Also, does this apply to free streams, or in other words not subscription services? It would be nice to travel around Europe and keep streaming for example the coverage of the olympics in my own language without the need for a VPN.
gonvaled 10y ago
Reporting, investigating, coming up with a solution, creating the appropriate law, and enforcing it is a lengthy and costly process. I hope non-contributors to the EU project are not going to leach on the effort and money the EU members are putting on this. The UK is taking with it, via "Great Repeal Bill", all these laws (with some to be ditched in the future, at their discretion). We need to ensure that: * the UK has properly contributed to the costs of creating the legislation body: any pending bills must be claimed * the UK is not leaching on the EU, by enjoying the benefits of these laws without contributing to the recurring enforcement costs. It seems the UK is going for a a Hard Brexit, and they will (I assume) want to opt-in in several beneficial schemes. In this case, a "Cross-Border Access to Streaming Services" yearly bill, amount to be negotiated, must be levied on the UK. It is not clear that the EU should have any interest in dealing on this kind of detail with one of our partners, when we are doing this in bulk within the EU. The more sensible outcome, from the EU point of view, is that the UK is excluded from this scheme, otherwise the administrative burden would blow out of proportion. There is a reason the EU is a thing.
- pc256 10y ago
  Well yes, outstanding bills should be paid. But I don't think the UK has been leaching, in fact the UK has been a net contributor to the EU for a long period of time [1]. As we are leaving the EU will we in some way get to reclaim some of the assets paid for over the period of time? Do we get the roof of the parliament in Strasbourg? Until we've actually left, we are bound by the rules of the EU which may include this. And given the current alignment of rules I wouldn't imagine it would be a huge burden. Once we've left, well paying associated costs may be a sensible thing to do, but that's for us to decide! [1] https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/ https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million...
  - gonvaled 10y ago
    > in fact the UK has been a net contributor to the EU for a long period of time Your membership fee was lower (per-capita, per-GDP) than other countries. That membership fee has bought you services, the same services that other countries have been enjoying, and paying at a premium compared to the UK. The UK has been a member of the EU by its own decision for over 30 years. Nothing to complain about there. On the other hand, EU members which have been paying premium membership price should very seriously consider adding to the exit bill whatever rebates have been granted to the UK during all these years. > As we are leaving the EU will we in some way get to reclaim some of the assets paid for over the period of time? Do we get the roof of the parliament in Strasbourg? When I am renting an apartment, and I need to pay for something that needs repair, I do not ask for money back whenever I leave. There may be some assets that you have a right to claim a stake in, though. There are also some open bills. That is a matter of exit negotiations. By the way, who is paying for the financial burden that the negotiations themselves are going to put in the EU? I hope that is also a matter of negotiations, and since it is a UK decision to leave (which we respect), the UK must contribute specially to those costs. > And given the current alignment of rules I wouldn't imagine it would be a huge burden 1. Since there will not be automatic law alignment, we can not guarantee this long-term 2. There won't be a framework to enforce this, since the EU will have no jurisdiction in the UK, and vice versa. Creating a third-party enforcement framework seems too big of a burden. > Once we've left, well paying associated costs may be a sensible thing to do, but that's for us to decide! For you ... and for the EU. As said, I do not think it is in the interest of the EU to deal with issues at these level of detail with each potential partner. We already deal with this at the EU level, put it in to law, and let the common EU enforcement mechanisms do the management. No need to duplicate this structure for each partner and each scheme that our partners would like to enjoy. A better solution, discussed at length, would be to negotiate access to the EU market (which includes these kind of schemes) with the UK. But this has already been ruled out by Theresa May, since it assumes acceptance of the four freedoms.
lhopki01 10y ago
Steps like this are important for the EU to achieve the market scale that the US currently has. It's baby steps but then remember that not that long ago the US had roaming fees for mobile phones.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
RichardHeart 10y ago
This and the cell phone roaming and the single currency really makes you think the EU is doing some outstanding things that benefit normal citizens.
- cr1895 10y ago
  The Euro is the single currency for 19 of 28 European Union members, the Eurozone. Not all of the EU uses the euro.
Illniyar 10y ago
Anything that the music and video industries oppose to I'm always for. Happy to see them losing ground more and more.
- Illniyar 10y ago
  ha, just realized it rhymes. Maybe I'll make a song about it, sell it to entrenched music industries :)

131 points by perseusprime11 10y ago

"Your ad blocker is interfering with the operation of this site. Please disable it or whitelist this site. Thank you. " ---variety.com "Your ads are security risk to my system. Please prove they are safe or allow my blocker." --- me

UweSchmidt 10y ago
No problems here with uBlock Origin and uMatrix.
- tr1ck5t3r 10y ago
  Have you set up your firewalls to check whats going out? When I have used ad blockers before, whilst they get rid of the adverts, the ones I have been using have still be reporting back to Google, which I don't want either. Setting your firewall to Reject all outgoing traffic except what you allow, is the fastest way to browse the web. If you set your firewall to Drop the packets it can take ages to load a web page. VPN's are useless as I suspect all NATO countries have oversight of the traffic passing over their networks, and despite a charade that NATO countries don't share intelligence, do you really and truly believe that? Maybe the politicians don't know, but I would never trust a Govt that operates in secret!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

roesel 10y ago

Definitely a move in a good direction. I wonder how long until this actually "happens". Does anyone know? With these things it always seems like they are done until you realize some pushback from the industry stopped it in its tracks.

mtgx 10y ago
From the article: > The online service providers will have nine months to adapt to the new rules, which means will come into force by the beginning of 2018.

jfaucett 10y ago

This is huge. This is the reason why my wife and I ditched Netflix and other streaming services we've tried. I'm guessing a lot of Europeans are like us, spend significant time living and working in other countries or at least have family members in various other countries which you visit a couple times a year. And not being able to access content you're paying when you're on a vacation in France, or visiting Family in Poland over Christmas, and especially not in the all the languages you know are available on the platform is the most annoying pain point. Of course we live on the German / French border now and previously on the German / Poland one, so maybe I'm just an outlier here and this isn't such a big deal...

song 10y ago
I actually enjoyed the fact that with netflix I'd get different choices of movies and shows every time I'd cross a border... It kept their library a bit more interesting :) That said I fully support this decision. It's a good move for the EU and I have no love for the MPAA and the Europe's movie and TV industry.
- jfaucett 10y ago
  When did you have that? When we tried Netflix it simply wasnt accessible outside the country.
  - aquilaFiera 10y ago
    Netflix launched globally in January 2015. With the exception of a few countries (like China, North Korea, Syria, and a few others) Netflix is available world wide now. The catalog still varies by country though but nearly all of the Netflix Originals are available world wide.
    - Freak_NL 10y ago
      Yeah, right now Netflix is available to you basically everywhere, but the regional licensing means you get to see only the content available in the country you are presently in, not where you are a subscriber. Of course, to prevent customers from pretending to be somewhere else, VPN access is mostly blocked now.

matt4077 10y ago

Note that while certainly a step in the right direction, this is unfortunately not what I expected from the headline. Specifically, it still allows market segmentation by country, i. e. if your country of residence is Germany, a streaming service aimed at the Irish market may still refuse to do business with you. The change is only that, if you have a subscription to the streaming service from Ireland, you will still be able to access it when you travel to Croatia (or any other EU country). It reminds me of mobile phone & data roaming rules, which use the same pattern. There, I'm more understanding of the need for continued market segmentation: If you'd require Romanian telco operators to extend their offers to citizen of Luxembourg with its dramatically higher cost of living, the market would obviously become unstable rather rapidly. With streaming, the same dynamic may be at play – possibly to the degree requiring this arrangement. But personally, I'm interested less in taking advantage of lower prices in other markets, but getting access to content that providers currently don't offer in my market. Not sure if the situation has improved, but last I checked streaming services often did not even have the english-language originals. I ain't going to go back to dubbed TV. Let's hope more countries use their EU membership as mostly-wisely as the Irish did and quickly catch up economically. (That'll solve not my TV troubles, but should also greatly diminish those fears of EU immigrants. Note how silly it'd sound to warn against the poor Irish dragging down France today, even though it was a theme when Ireland joined the EU)

patrickaljord 10y ago
> The change is only that, if you have a subscription to the streaming service from Ireland, you will still be able to access it when you travel to Croatia (or any other EU country). So you want to force people to do business together by using the power of the law aka State violence? Shouldn't trade and labour be a voluntary thing? I thought we agreed on the immorality of the idea of forced labour a while ago.
- MatekCopatek 10y ago
  You're not forcing anyone to do anything. You're just giving them additional requirements. I don't see how that's any more forceful from any other regulation you have to respect in order to run a legal business.

roesel 10y ago

Also, does this apply to free streams, or in other words not subscription services? It would be nice to travel around Europe and keep streaming for example the coverage of the olympics in my own language without the need for a VPN.

gonvaled 10y ago

Reporting, investigating, coming up with a solution, creating the appropriate law, and enforcing it is a lengthy and costly process. I hope non-contributors to the EU project are not going to leach on the effort and money the EU members are putting on this. The UK is taking with it, via "Great Repeal Bill", all these laws (with some to be ditched in the future, at their discretion). We need to ensure that: * the UK has properly contributed to the costs of creating the legislation body: any pending bills must be claimed * the UK is not leaching on the EU, by enjoying the benefits of these laws without contributing to the recurring enforcement costs. It seems the UK is going for a a Hard Brexit, and they will (I assume) want to opt-in in several beneficial schemes. In this case, a "Cross-Border Access to Streaming Services" yearly bill, amount to be negotiated, must be levied on the UK. It is not clear that the EU should have any interest in dealing on this kind of detail with one of our partners, when we are doing this in bulk within the EU. The more sensible outcome, from the EU point of view, is that the UK is excluded from this scheme, otherwise the administrative burden would blow out of proportion. There is a reason the EU is a thing.

pc256 10y ago
Well yes, outstanding bills should be paid. But I don't think the UK has been leaching, in fact the UK has been a net contributor to the EU for a long period of time [1]. As we are leaving the EU will we in some way get to reclaim some of the assets paid for over the period of time? Do we get the roof of the parliament in Strasbourg? Until we've actually left, we are bound by the rules of the EU which may include this. And given the current alignment of rules I wouldn't imagine it would be a huge burden. Once we've left, well paying associated costs may be a sensible thing to do, but that's for us to decide! [1] https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/ https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million...
- gonvaled 10y ago
  > in fact the UK has been a net contributor to the EU for a long period of time Your membership fee was lower (per-capita, per-GDP) than other countries. That membership fee has bought you services, the same services that other countries have been enjoying, and paying at a premium compared to the UK. The UK has been a member of the EU by its own decision for over 30 years. Nothing to complain about there. On the other hand, EU members which have been paying premium membership price should very seriously consider adding to the exit bill whatever rebates have been granted to the UK during all these years. > As we are leaving the EU will we in some way get to reclaim some of the assets paid for over the period of time? Do we get the roof of the parliament in Strasbourg? When I am renting an apartment, and I need to pay for something that needs repair, I do not ask for money back whenever I leave. There may be some assets that you have a right to claim a stake in, though. There are also some open bills. That is a matter of exit negotiations. By the way, who is paying for the financial burden that the negotiations themselves are going to put in the EU? I hope that is also a matter of negotiations, and since it is a UK decision to leave (which we respect), the UK must contribute specially to those costs. > And given the current alignment of rules I wouldn't imagine it would be a huge burden 1. Since there will not be automatic law alignment, we can not guarantee this long-term 2. There won't be a framework to enforce this, since the EU will have no jurisdiction in the UK, and vice versa. Creating a third-party enforcement framework seems too big of a burden. > Once we've left, well paying associated costs may be a sensible thing to do, but that's for us to decide! For you ... and for the EU. As said, I do not think it is in the interest of the EU to deal with issues at these level of detail with each potential partner. We already deal with this at the EU level, put it in to law, and let the common EU enforcement mechanisms do the management. No need to duplicate this structure for each partner and each scheme that our partners would like to enjoy. A better solution, discussed at length, would be to negotiate access to the EU market (which includes these kind of schemes) with the UK. But this has already been ruled out by Theresa May, since it assumes acceptance of the four freedoms.

lhopki01 10y ago

Steps like this are important for the EU to achieve the market scale that the US currently has. It's baby steps but then remember that not that long ago the US had roaming fees for mobile phones.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

RichardHeart 10y ago

This and the cell phone roaming and the single currency really makes you think the EU is doing some outstanding things that benefit normal citizens.

cr1895 10y ago
The Euro is the single currency for 19 of 28 European Union members, the Eurozone. Not all of the EU uses the euro.

Illniyar 10y ago

Anything that the music and video industries oppose to I'm always for. Happy to see them losing ground more and more.

Illniyar 10y ago
ha, just realized it rhymes. Maybe I'll make a song about it, sell it to entrenched music industries :)