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> Bell argued that Canadians accessing content from a US service with a VPN “unjustly enriches the US service, which has not paid for the Canadian rights” Odd

by deogeo 8y ago

> Bell argued that Canadians accessing content from a US service with a VPN “unjustly enriches the US service, which has not paid for the Canadian rights” Odd how 'free trade' doesn't apply to consumers. Are they not allowed to import digital goods?

ac29 8y ago
Its not a free trade issue, its a matter of contractual distribution agreements with geographical limitations. That's pretty common in many industries, not just those dealing in digital goods.
- deogeo 8y ago
  The consumer never agreed to those contracts. He bought the goods in the US, and imported them into Canada, via a VPN. He could just as well have driven across the border, bought a DVD, and carried it back.
  - SpaceManiac 8y ago
    DVDs have region locking. The United States and Canada happen to be in the same region, and there are bypasses, but technical controls against importing digital goods are already normalized, and I doubt this analogy will convince policymakers.
    - dtech 8y ago
      This is irrelevant. Replace DVD with an apple. The point is that free trade between countries means you should be able to buy in one country and use in the other country.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      The policymakers can be safely assumed to be hostile on this anyway (usually because they're bought by the lobbyists). The goal, therefore, is to throw them out and replace them with ones that are not, not to convince them. Convincing is for the voters to do that.
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      DVD region locking isn't much of a "technical control". There are 8 regions, because that's the number of bits in a byte. The region lock is a single byte that specifies which regions are intended to read the disc. On the honor system, a DVD player is supposed to read this byte, check the bit for its region, and refuse to play the disc if the bit is unset. The only "control" here is that it's assumed you don't have a copy of the DVD spec and don't realize what the lock consists of. Ignoring it suffices to bypass it.
    - clubm8 8y ago
      >technical controls against importing digital goods are already normalized then why is bell canada whining about VPNs, if they're normal and accepted?
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  Sounds like Bell doesn't really want to offer IP services. They should just pivot their business to work on a proprietary system they have 100% control over. Maybe resurrect OSI and convince Canadians it's better.
slavik81 8y ago
> Odd how 'free trade' doesn't apply to consumers. Are they not allowed to import digital goods? Bell doesn't want free trade on the business side, either. They are part of an oligopoly that is protected from foreign competition by laws on Canadian media ownership. Media and cultural industries were exceptions to both the NAFTA agreement and the newer USMCA agreement.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  Bell’s all for cheaper networking gear though. Their nationwide 3G network (which they split the build cost with one of their “competitors”) was built by Huawei and Nokia. Even if they’re not currently buying Huawei gear, they still benefit from a formidable competitor for a supplier.. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/bell-teams-up-with-rival-telus-on-3g/article1200256/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/bell-teams-up-wit...
kevin_b_er 8y ago
It is usually how these things work. The human engaging in arbitrage is a crime or something a corporation cries foul over. A corporation, or sometimes just a rich human, doing it is "just good business".
- dmix 8y ago
  uhh... you're missing a critical part of that equation which is government/private influence. A private corporation can't "ban" VPNs and encryption without a huge backlash from their retail customer base and the corporate entities which depend on their networks and the full lobbying might of all tech businesses in general which profit from a healthy free internet. The only way this would work is via unilateral gov policy, which in recent years are common in mega-trade deals (as some politicians have called it the "gold standard" of state/capitalist countries policy), and which is exactly why Bell never tried to do it privately themselves. Much like the majority of the worst examples of major corporate abuses in the paste few decades they have almost always been businesses who are close friends with government. Often in the most heavily regulated industries: telecom/ISPs, pharma [1], finance [no citation needed, see post-2008 policies which crippled small-bank competition and reduced the market to 5 mega-banks], and energy - as we've seen recently with PG&E in California: https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-politicians-direct-capital-11548980161 https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-politicians-direct-capital... Despite rhetoric about "corporate greed" causing the PG&E safety lapses, the California government has played a massive role in controlling PG&E's capital expenditure and safety policy for two decades (including giving them a free pass from any market-consequences after a similar fire in 2017) AND they already charge the highest per person energy costs in the entire country. Given that forced mandate PG&E simply couldn't have afforded the money on those massive safety improvements even if they wanted to (without further burden on tax payers), they were already pushing their customers to the max via state influenced spending policies on climate change tech. Plus what incentive did they have when they had 1500 other incidents and their friends in gov repeatedly gave them a free pass? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements?oldformat=true https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical...
  - throw2016 8y ago
lhorie 8y ago
FWIW, Bell's argument is completely silly, because typically when I see people doing this, it's to get access to TV shows that they wouldn't otherwise be able to at all.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
>> Bell argued that Canadians accessing content from a US service with a VPN “unjustly enriches the US service, which has not paid for the Canadian rights” I see something else weird. Why would a Canadian politician care about this? You don't buy Canadian distribution rights from Canada or from any Canadian entity. You buy them from the copyright holder. If I'm an American tourist in Canada and I want to watch Moana on my Netflix account, and I do that by tunneling back to my home computer and appearing to be located in the US, then Netflix is inappropriately delivering me content that they gave Disney money for the right to distribute within the US. But if they also needed to buy the right to distribute it in Canada... they'd give that money to Disney too. Why does Canada need Netflix to give more money to an American company?
- ninth_ant 8y ago
  > Why would a Canadian politician care about this? You don't buy Canadian distribution rights from Canada or from any Canadian entity. You buy them from the copyright holder. Because the Canadian company paid for exclusive access to that content within Canada for the purpose of making profit. This generates tax revenue and employment and increases the value fo the company for the shareholders, things politicians care about to various degrees.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    1. Company buys something that doesn’t exist. 2. Company lobbies government to demand that their something must be made to exist. Genius.
  - wonthegame 8y ago
    Many times the content is never made available to Canadians! It’s quite frustrating because we want to their content but there is no legal way.
    - deogeo 8y ago
      There's an upside to that, as buying that content would finance more of this kind of anti-consumer lobbying.

by deogeo 8y ago

ac29 8y ago

Its not a free trade issue, its a matter of contractual distribution agreements with geographical limitations. That's pretty common in many industries, not just those dealing in digital goods.

deogeo 8y ago
The consumer never agreed to those contracts. He bought the goods in the US, and imported them into Canada, via a VPN. He could just as well have driven across the border, bought a DVD, and carried it back.
- SpaceManiac 8y ago
  DVDs have region locking. The United States and Canada happen to be in the same region, and there are bypasses, but technical controls against importing digital goods are already normalized, and I doubt this analogy will convince policymakers.
  - dtech 8y ago
    This is irrelevant. Replace DVD with an apple. The point is that free trade between countries means you should be able to buy in one country and use in the other country.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    The policymakers can be safely assumed to be hostile on this anyway (usually because they're bought by the lobbyists). The goal, therefore, is to throw them out and replace them with ones that are not, not to convince them. Convincing is for the voters to do that.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    DVD region locking isn't much of a "technical control". There are 8 regions, because that's the number of bits in a byte. The region lock is a single byte that specifies which regions are intended to read the disc. On the honor system, a DVD player is supposed to read this byte, check the bit for its region, and refuse to play the disc if the bit is unset. The only "control" here is that it's assumed you don't have a copy of the DVD spec and don't realize what the lock consists of. Ignoring it suffices to bypass it.
  - clubm8 8y ago
    >technical controls against importing digital goods are already normalized then why is bell canada whining about VPNs, if they're normal and accepted?
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Sounds like Bell doesn't really want to offer IP services. They should just pivot their business to work on a proprietary system they have 100% control over. Maybe resurrect OSI and convince Canadians it's better.

slavik81 8y ago

> Odd how 'free trade' doesn't apply to consumers. Are they not allowed to import digital goods? Bell doesn't want free trade on the business side, either. They are part of an oligopoly that is protected from foreign competition by laws on Canadian media ownership. Media and cultural industries were exceptions to both the NAFTA agreement and the newer USMCA agreement.

Scoundreller 8y ago
Bell’s all for cheaper networking gear though. Their nationwide 3G network (which they split the build cost with one of their “competitors”) was built by Huawei and Nokia. Even if they’re not currently buying Huawei gear, they still benefit from a formidable competitor for a supplier.. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/bell-teams-up-with-rival-telus-on-3g/article1200256/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/bell-teams-up-wit...

kevin_b_er 8y ago

It is usually how these things work. The human engaging in arbitrage is a crime or something a corporation cries foul over. A corporation, or sometimes just a rich human, doing it is "just good business".

dmix 8y ago
uhh... you're missing a critical part of that equation which is government/private influence. A private corporation can't "ban" VPNs and encryption without a huge backlash from their retail customer base and the corporate entities which depend on their networks and the full lobbying might of all tech businesses in general which profit from a healthy free internet. The only way this would work is via unilateral gov policy, which in recent years are common in mega-trade deals (as some politicians have called it the "gold standard" of state/capitalist countries policy), and which is exactly why Bell never tried to do it privately themselves. Much like the majority of the worst examples of major corporate abuses in the paste few decades they have almost always been businesses who are close friends with government. Often in the most heavily regulated industries: telecom/ISPs, pharma [1], finance [no citation needed, see post-2008 policies which crippled small-bank competition and reduced the market to 5 mega-banks], and energy - as we've seen recently with PG&E in California: https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-politicians-direct-capital-11548980161 https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-politicians-direct-capital... Despite rhetoric about "corporate greed" causing the PG&E safety lapses, the California government has played a massive role in controlling PG&E's capital expenditure and safety policy for two decades (including giving them a free pass from any market-consequences after a similar fire in 2017) AND they already charge the highest per person energy costs in the entire country. Given that forced mandate PG&E simply couldn't have afforded the money on those massive safety improvements even if they wanted to (without further burden on tax payers), they were already pushing their customers to the max via state influenced spending policies on climate change tech. Plus what incentive did they have when they had 1500 other incidents and their friends in gov repeatedly gave them a free pass? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements?oldformat=true https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical...
- throw2016 8y ago

lhorie 8y ago

FWIW, Bell's argument is completely silly, because typically when I see people doing this, it's to get access to TV shows that they wouldn't otherwise be able to at all.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

>> Bell argued that Canadians accessing content from a US service with a VPN “unjustly enriches the US service, which has not paid for the Canadian rights” I see something else weird. Why would a Canadian politician care about this? You don't buy Canadian distribution rights from Canada or from any Canadian entity. You buy them from the copyright holder. If I'm an American tourist in Canada and I want to watch Moana on my Netflix account, and I do that by tunneling back to my home computer and appearing to be located in the US, then Netflix is inappropriately delivering me content that they gave Disney money for the right to distribute within the US. But if they also needed to buy the right to distribute it in Canada... they'd give that money to Disney too. Why does Canada need Netflix to give more money to an American company?

ninth_ant 8y ago
> Why would a Canadian politician care about this? You don't buy Canadian distribution rights from Canada or from any Canadian entity. You buy them from the copyright holder. Because the Canadian company paid for exclusive access to that content within Canada for the purpose of making profit. This generates tax revenue and employment and increases the value fo the company for the shareholders, things politicians care about to various degrees.
- sjwright 8y ago
  1. Company buys something that doesn’t exist. 2. Company lobbies government to demand that their something must be made to exist. Genius.
- wonthegame 8y ago
  Many times the content is never made available to Canadians! It’s quite frustrating because we want to their content but there is no legal way.
  - deogeo 8y ago
    There's an upside to that, as buying that content would finance more of this kind of anti-consumer lobbying.