4 ms·

Something that I don't see mentioned much is that China also restricts access to Chinese sites, probably partly to stop foreign countries complaining about copy

by ximeng 15y ago

Something that I don't see mentioned much is that China also restricts access to Chinese sites, probably partly to stop foreign countries complaining about copyright violations. Many videos are geo-restricted to be visible in China only, the same is true for music download sites. Less people raise this because more Western people want to access Western content from China than want to access Chinese content from the West, but it is another issue affecting free exchange of culture. It's also not as straightforward to get a VPN into China as it is to get one out of China. Not to mention that this annoys Chinese students studying abroad who want to watch TV from home.

nekojima 15y ago
"China also restricts access to Chinese sites, probably partly to stop foreign countries complaining about copyright violations" More often than not it is because the Chinese site is in competition with a state owned or controlled competitor who wants to hobble its competitor, or there is a power shift within the regulating authority or relevant ministry and competing state owned or controlled sites are using their party proxies to hurt another local site for their own gain.
- ximeng 15y ago
  Not sure about this. Over the past two or three years, ku6, ppstream, youku, tudou, and Tencent TV all started georestriction. It seems there's some government restriction in play.
  - nekojima 15y ago
    Just chatting to a senior exec at one of those sites and he said for them it was in part because they don't get ad revenues from viewers outside of mainland and the cost of external bandwidth was too high to service overseas Chinese and others viewing the videos, for which they get little or no monetary benefit.
    - ximeng 15y ago
      This makes sense, as I think Westerners cottoned on to the fact you can watch popular Western movies on these sites for free, even if you have little interest in Chinese KFC and Nutri-express adverts.

by ximeng 15y ago

nekojima 15y ago

"China also restricts access to Chinese sites, probably partly to stop foreign countries complaining about copyright violations" More often than not it is because the Chinese site is in competition with a state owned or controlled competitor who wants to hobble its competitor, or there is a power shift within the regulating authority or relevant ministry and competing state owned or controlled sites are using their party proxies to hurt another local site for their own gain.

ximeng 15y ago
Not sure about this. Over the past two or three years, ku6, ppstream, youku, tudou, and Tencent TV all started georestriction. It seems there's some government restriction in play.
- nekojima 15y ago
  Just chatting to a senior exec at one of those sites and he said for them it was in part because they don't get ad revenues from viewers outside of mainland and the cost of external bandwidth was too high to service overseas Chinese and others viewing the videos, for which they get little or no monetary benefit.
  - ximeng 15y ago
    This makes sense, as I think Westerners cottoned on to the fact you can watch popular Western movies on these sites for free, even if you have little interest in Chinese KFC and Nutri-express adverts.