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While I too think that market segmentation as it exists for digital goods is stupid, I don't think it is done just for the money. Different countries have diff

While I too think that market segmentation as it exists for digital goods is stupid, I don't think it is done just for the money. Different countries have different laws, different taxes, and your home country has different treaties and export control regulations that all need to be accounted for when selling to other countries. In some cases there could be markets/services that abstract some of this away, but it is not a trivial problem. If it was trivial to do, then the only segmentation you would see would only be differentiating on price (getting the most that someone in that region would pay for it), instead of not selling it in those countries at all. Now, the RIAA/MPAA has deep enough pockets and plenty of lawyers that they could have figured all this out for themselves already, and could have built a great online distribution system for themselves. So for them, segmentation is purely a play for money, though (hopefully) it will hurt their profits in the long run.

pmjordan 15y ago
As far as I can tell, the reasons are that there are RIAA/MPAA-like cartels in most countries, which control the local distribution rights. Anyone wanting to sell music needs to negotiate deals with each of these individual copyright fiefdoms in order to be able to do business in the respective country. The legal costs are similar for each country, the expected returns vary wildly with affluence and size of the country. Apple has very, very deep pockets and a track record of making money hand over fist, and they've got quite far with music, but movies and TV series are only available in a few countries near the top of the list in terms of GDP. You can infer from that how hard it must be for anyone else. I assume they make it so difficult because they're terrified of upsetting their existing distribution channels. There's no other way I can explain why a DVD is cheaper than the same movie on iTunes, and why CDs on Amazon are still often cheaper than their MP3 counterparts on the same site.
slavak 15y ago
To be totally frank, I don't really understand the legal requirements from this. Do I really have to comply with all of a country's laws in order to allow its citizens to purchase electronic goods from my online storefront (assuming I have no physical presence in their country)? If so, why? And what possible sanctions do they have against me? Logic would dictate that the country would be responsible for barring access to such resources from within its borders - not individual foreign bussinesses.

pmjordan 15y ago

As far as I can tell, the reasons are that there are RIAA/MPAA-like cartels in most countries, which control the local distribution rights. Anyone wanting to sell music needs to negotiate deals with each of these individual copyright fiefdoms in order to be able to do business in the respective country. The legal costs are similar for each country, the expected returns vary wildly with affluence and size of the country. Apple has very, very deep pockets and a track record of making money hand over fist, and they've got quite far with music, but movies and TV series are only available in a few countries near the top of the list in terms of GDP. You can infer from that how hard it must be for anyone else. I assume they make it so difficult because they're terrified of upsetting their existing distribution channels. There's no other way I can explain why a DVD is cheaper than the same movie on iTunes, and why CDs on Amazon are still often cheaper than their MP3 counterparts on the same site.

slavak 15y ago

To be totally frank, I don't really understand the legal requirements from this. Do I really have to comply with all of a country's laws in order to allow its citizens to purchase electronic goods from my online storefront (assuming I have no physical presence in their country)? If so, why? And what possible sanctions do they have against me? Logic would dictate that the country would be responsible for barring access to such resources from within its borders - not individual foreign bussinesses.