7 ms·

This is the side of the EU that foreigners usually don't see. This is the reason there are movements for quitting in every member state (with varying levels of

• Ygg2 8y ago
  Interesting. What are you thoughts on DIEM 25?
• philwelch 8y ago
  This isn't all that different from the "Canadian Content" regulations in Canadian broadcasting, which is probably a contributing factor to the disproportionate number of Canadian popular music artists.
  • bepotts 8y ago
    It probably has more to do with the fact that Canada is close to the US, so Canadians have plenty of opportunities to mingle with the American cultural players.
    • philwelch 8y ago
      There are parts of the US that are in the US and don't produce quite as many actors and music artists. Though there are some other factors (e.g. Vancouver's generous film subsidies and variety of cool-looking architecture to use as outdoor film sets), there seems to be way more Canadians in entertainment than you'd expect, and I wouldn't dismiss the influence of Can-Con regulations. Of course, it probably helps that Canada has plenty of cultural and linguistic similarities to the United States. Preserving the native culture of, say, Denmark through Danish Content regulations on popular entertainment means producing content that isn't easily consumed outside of Denmark, whereas a ton of Canadian Content can be easily marketed in the United States.
• harperlee 8y ago
  This is not something that comes (only) from the EU; at least France and Spain have similar local "cultural protection" laws that were not imposed by EU. So it is more of a European, rather than Europeanunionean, way of thinking: local "culture" (as in, cultural product industry) is a public good and thus needs to be protected by the state. Not that I agree with it...
  • kodablah 8y ago
    > So it is more of a European, rather than Europeanunionean, way of thinking If one appears to beget the other they might as well be the same. I sympathize with countries desiring sovereignty on these issues that should remain at the country level.
    • harperlee 8y ago
      You can't have your cake and eat it too: either you want sovereignty, or you want to be part of a bigger system in which you cannot always get your way. This happens at EU level, at country level, at regional level, at city level, and a district level. It is part of how societies work. But more specifically, what I was arguing is that these kinds of decisions are not why people want to leave (sannee's point above). People want to leave due to poor people not having had adequate political representation for a long time, thus begetting populism when the financial crisis hit us. Not because of TV rules being agreed with other countries (sorry for the strawman, but it makes the point).
      • kodablah 8y ago
        > You can't have your cake and eat it too: either you want sovereignty, or you want to be part of a bigger system in which you cannot always get your way. I'm not sure that's true. I think the EU, as a non-political economic union gives you that cake. It's the political side keeping you from eating it. I think there are many financial policies that can be properly disentangled from political beliefs and the ones that can't should be deferred. TV rules are a microcosm of the real issue: a political union making political decisions when some of its less influential members would prefer such not-purely-economical decisions be delegated. (at least this is what it looks like from the outside)
• sidstling 8y ago
  The push for forced support of local tv production on the big streaming services is coming mainly from leave type right-wing parties though.
• hangonhn 8y ago
  I'm not sure it's entirely wrong when you have a heavyweight like the US/Hollywood that dominates the global entertainment industry. I don't know about you but the content coming out of Hollywood is depressingly dumb. This may be a hamfisted attempt at addressing that but the problem remains. The loudest voice in the room is US/Hollywood. Entertainment is often our "first contact" with ideas beyond our normal areas of expertise and if you entrust that to Hollywood, you're going to have a lot of misinformed people. I mean just look at how computer scientists and engineers are portrayed in Hollywood... if I had my choice I wouldn't want Hollywood portraying/writing about me and my peers.
  • antidesitter 8y ago
    But will you leave others the choice to watch what they want?
    • hangonhn 8y ago
      Yes. I think the local content should be available and accessible. But beyond that, it's up to the studios to fight for viewers.
      • fiter 8y ago
        Who is paying for the content? If you're promoting some content its at the expense of another set of content.
      • kodablah 8y ago
        >>> I'm not sure it's entirely wrong >> But will you leave others the choice to watch what they want? > Yes Can't at one point say it's not wrong to restrict content and at another point say you support people watching any content they want. Either you're for laws on amount of content or you accept that there is no ceiling/limits which includes what you subjectively perceive as dumb.
  • phyller 8y ago
    What is going to happen is reverse of what you say you want. The big Hollywood blockbusters will be just as available as before, what you are losing is the long tail of smaller independent films that may be more thought provoking or diverse. If some streaming service has to cut 80% of its offerings, they will keep the Transformers and Marvel movies and cut the smaller ones. Even if they made more specific regulation to remove those blockbusters, which will annoy the general population, almost all regulation benefits the large incumbents in the long run. They have the resources to figure out how to game the system.
• barrkel 8y ago
  It's anti-majoritarianism. There's economies of scale to producing products addressed to the majority, and minorities suffer as a result. This doesn't just affect cultural products. Who wants the high street in their town to be filled with chain shops, identikit and no different from the next town over?
• sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "This is the reason there are movements for quitting in every member state " No, totally not. Promoting national and regional content is probably something that the populist anti-EU types would support anyhow. I understand the EU has woes, and some rulings might cause problems ... but this ruling isn't an example of that.
  • sannee 8y ago
    Anti-EU types usually base their rhetorics on globally enforced regulations coming from "Brussel bureaucrats". Sure, I would not be surprised if this concrete instance of such a regulation was welcomed in these circles (consistency isn't strong suite of some), but the more broad point stands.
• microcolonel 8y ago
  > The isolationism EU is beginning to display is starting to worry even me and the alternative is a bunch of UKIP-like nationalist which I am not really a big fan of. Well, if it's UKIP in particular, the good news is that the opportunity is convincing them to become increasingly liberal in order to gain broader appeal.
• Kenji 8y ago
  It's not isolationism. It's pure authoritarianism. I don't care about local shows. If it's good, it gains traction and wins out in the TV market. If it's bad, it dies off. If local shows cannot compete, then let them die and never come back.
• andresp 8y ago
  Exactly. The EU has lost any contact with reality and is drowning in their own ideological echo chamber. It seems that fear is making them adopt such a defensive approach that it is stopping them to see how their efforts are actually sucessively destroying any remnant of representativeness they might still have. If this trend (which started with the financial crisis in 2008/9) continues, the EU might end up being France and Germany alone in a few decades.
• wutbrodo 8y ago
  > This is the side of the EU that foreigners usually don't see. FWIW, this is the main side of the EU that I'm aware of: laughably bad lawmaking, based on complete unawareness of (or apathy towards?) the concept that the consequences of policies aren't based on wishing on a star that they be a certain way. Don't get me wrong: I'm not sure I'd rather live (as I do) under the US's policy regime than I would under the EU's. But our pathologies of governance are different ones.
  • GW150914 8y ago
    Don't get me wrong: I'm not sure I'd rather live (as I do) under the US's policy regime than I would under the EU's. But our pathologies of governance are different ones. You know how the saying goes, you can live under US domestic policy or US foreign policy, but you can’t escape US policy. The idea of the EU was that by working together the member states could get their way in the face of that US foreign policy more often than they would on their own. In the absence of a strong EU, the US and China are pretty much unrestrained in Europe.
    • adreamingsoul 8y ago
      "you can live under US domestic policy or US foreign policy, but you can’t escape US policy" - that's depressing.
  • jacquesm 8y ago
    The EU does a piss poor job of explaining to its constituents what its advantages are, that's for sure.
• iknowstuff 8y ago
  The alternative is voting for people who support your viewpoint in the upcoming European Parliament elections next year, not quitting.