
E.U. Agrees to Cross-Border Access to Streaming Services - perseusprime11
http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/e-u-see-as-you-travel-online-cross-border-access-1201980748/
======
matt4077
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)

~~~
Freak_NL
The author of the OP article notes this as well, but seems hopeful that this
is just one more step in creating a single digital market in Europe as well:

> He added; ”Agreements are now needed on our other proposals to modernise
> E.U. copyright rules and ensure a wider access to creative content across
> borders. I count on the European Parliament and Member States to make it
> happen.”

> That looks like a reference to the overhaul of copyright announced mid-
> September which, at least in the European Commission proposal, would see the
> “country of origin” principle currently in place for cable and satellite
> programming extended to broadcasters’ online services. In other words, _if a
> broadcaster is licensed to serve one jurisdiction in the E.U. with an online
> service, they would be authorized to serve that online service to all E.U.
> member states._

Emphasis mine; that part looks interesting. If that happens, might that mean
that Netflix can legally serve content licensed in Germany to customers in
Belgium despite not having the redistribution rights for that country? That
is, you can't license films or series for redistribution in just one EU
country, you either license it for all or none. Makes sense given the scale of
the EU.

~~~
usrusr
Or it could mean that Netflix cannot cheaply licence a Portuguese show for
Belgium, because they would have to effectively licence the whole regional
block even though "everything except Portugal" would be orders of magnitude
cheaper.

The same thing happens with sports all the time, very expensive to license in
the home market, cheap as packaging peanuts in foreign markets (and used in
pretty much the same way, for filling up inconvenient voids).

Previously, distributors had an incentive to popularize content across is home
market boundary, with forced full region licensing this goes away.

(Edit: " _effectively_ licence the whole block". The whole "may refuse to do
business, but must stream everywhere" thing seems awfully muddy, my take is
that it would be entirely to the rights holder wether they would consider a
licence for that "Irish residents only" an expensive EU wide license or a much
cheaper Ireland only)

~~~
Freak_NL
Certainly, there is that drawback, but on the whole Europeans (myself
included) will benefit. In terms of content Netflix has very little that is
desired exclusively in certain countries; most of its backlog is English films
and series, and sports is not Netflix' expertise.

For the customers this should be a welcome change; nothing is more annoying
than a global digital services provider deciding for you that you cannot watch
content X because you live in country Y. Let me choose if I want to watch
Portuguese sitcoms instead of unilaterally deciding that all Dutch don't like
those.

While I do like Netflix' globally available original material, I also want a
legal way to enjoy the long tail of film/television content. This kind of
legislature helps.

------
gonvaled
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.

~~~
jfaucett
> There is a reason the EU is a thing.

The problem with the EU is that they now have the goal of becoming the United
States of Europe and eliminating national soverignty in most senses of the
word. [1] This isn't good or bad just many EU officials statements of their
goals. [1] However, it is something relatively new and not what the EU started
out to be when a lot of members joined up. [2]

If the EU had said from the beginning, "we want to create a United States of
Europe" and the people in each new member country had democratically voted for
that we wouldn't be having a lot of the problems we have right now.

But its an assault on freedom to try to accumulate central power while
decimating local democratic processes, especially for all the member states
who did not join under such pretences.

It makes the affronts even more egregious when you realize EU citizens have
little democratic control over the the European Commission and European
Council which accounts for 2/3 of the European legislative body.

Whether you're for a United States of Europe or not these are issues we need
to address if we want to make real progress in the EU.

> the UK is not leaching on the EU, by enjoying the benefits of these laws
> without contributing to the recurring enforcement costs.

IMHO attempting to punish the UK by refusing to cooperate with them when its
mutually beneficial to both parties is not a route I'd like to see us take. In
general economic terms, it will almost always be in the EUs interest to work
with the UK and not against them. The EU enjoys the benefits of many laws in
the USA and elsewhere, for instance that a subscriber to a service in
California can use that service in Georgia. Still, it would be absurd to
assume the EU should pay a price to help enforce that law.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe)

2\. [http://www.aueb.gr/statistical-institute/european-
citizens/h...](http://www.aueb.gr/statistical-institute/european-
citizens/history_en.pdf)

~~~
claudius
> However, it is something relatively new and not what the EU started out to
> be when a lot of members joined up. [2]

This is a lie. The Treaty of Rome of 1957(!) establishing the European
Economic Community already contained the phrase "ever-closer union" in its
preamble (though admittedly only in French, German, Dutch and Italian).

> If the EU had said from the beginning, "we want to create a United States of
> Europe" and the people in each new member country had democratically voted
> for that we wouldn't be having a lot of the problems we have right now.

This is _exactly_ what the British voted to join after de Gaulle died and
couldn’t keep up the resistance any longer.

> It makes the affronts even more egregious when you realize EU citizens have
> little democratic control over the the European Commission and European
> Council which accounts for 2/3 of the European legislative body.

This is another lie. The commission has to be accepted by the European
Parliament, which directly represents the people and the council is made up of
the governments of the member countries. If the people in your country have
"little democratic control" over your government, there’s your problem. Hint:
blaming the EU won’t help.

We really don’t need the whole concept of ‘alternative facts’ over here now,
too, do we?

~~~
jfaucett
You are calling my assertions lies, when you aren't citing anything to back up
any of your assertions. That's not very civil debate and won't get us
anywhere.

> This is a lie. The Treaty of Rome of 1957(!) ....

The treaty of Paris 1951 [1] was established on the basis of economic trade in
coal and steel, which was followed by The Treaty of Rome 1957 which
established the European Economic Community which aimed to to do just that
create an economic community. [2] Now, you can argue about what the people who
set this up wanted and I'd agree many (Churchhill, Jean Monnet, etc) [3,4] did
want a United States of Europe with a centralized European Army [4]. You could
possibly say people voted on this since some of their leaders believed in this
idea, and some of those leaders were elected in a democratic process (notably
not Churchhill or Monnet) [5], but its a pretty long stretch.

> This is exactly what the British voted to join after de Gaulle

If you mean the EEC membership referendum of 1975, this is the actual question
the Brits voted on "Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the
European Community (the Common Market)?" [6].

That doesn't seem much like voting on being a member state of a United States
of Europe to me. But maybe there are multiple ways of interpreting that, still
newspapers referred to those in the yes camp as "pro-marketeers" or "Pro-
Market" [8] which seems to suggest it was about economic trade and not so much
political aspects of giving up national sovereignty.

I'd like to provide you with more facts about your other assertions but I
don't have the time. Maybe someone else will.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1951)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_\(1951\))

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community)

3\. [http://www.churchill-society-
london.org.uk/astonish.html](http://www.churchill-society-
london.org.uk/astonish.html)

4\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet#Common_Market](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet#Common_Market)

5\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_the_United_K...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom)

6\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Commun...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975)

7\. [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/from-the-archive-
blog/2...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/from-the-archive-
blog/2015/jun/05/referendum-eec-europe-1975#img-2)

~~~
claudius
> You are calling my assertions lies, when you aren't citing anything to back
> up any of your assertions. That's not very civil debate and won't get us
> anywhere.

I also didn’t cite sources for my assertion that de Gaulle died and that the
UK joined the EEC, all of these things are well-known facts. But do allow me
to cite my source, namely from the preamble of the 1957 treaty, here in its
English translation:

    
    
        HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE BELGIANS, THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY, THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, THE PRESIDENT OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC, HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE GRAND DUCHESS OF LUXEMBOURG, HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF THE NETHERLANDS,
    
        DETERMINED to establish the foundations of an ever closer union among the European peoples,
    

for an (unofficial, of course) translation, see for example:
[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_the_Europ...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_the_European_Economic_Community)
or
[http://www.hri.org/docs/Rome57/Preamble.html](http://www.hri.org/docs/Rome57/Preamble.html),
the primary source at eur-lex.europa.eu seems to be down at the moment.

> If you mean the EEC membership referendum of 1975, this is the actual
> question the Brits voted on "Do you think that the United Kingdom should
> stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?" [6]. > That doesn't
> seem much like voting on being a member state of a United States of Europe
> to me. But maybe there are multiple ways of interpreting that, still
> newspapers referred to those in the yes camp as "pro-marketeers" or "Pro-
> Market" [8] which seems to suggest it was about economic trade and not so
> much political aspects of giving up national sovereignty.

The EEC was founded by the Treaty of Rome and literally the first sentence of
the preamble of that treaty contains the phrase "ever-closer union". Please do
explain how any reasonable person could think it was _not_ about laying the
foundation for a United States of Europe? You may argue that the UK-internal
politics and media misrepresented the whole thing horribly, but you don’t fix
that by leaving the EU.

------
jfaucett
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
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
When did you have that? When we tried Netflix it simply wasnt accessible
outside the country.

~~~
aquilaFiera
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
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.

------
lhopki01
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.

------
roesel
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
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.

------
RichardHeart
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
The Euro is the single currency for 19 of 28 European Union members, the
Eurozone. Not all of the EU uses the euro.

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

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

------
roesel
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.

------
smegger001
"Your ad blocker is interfering with the operation of this site. Please
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"Your ads are security risk to my system. Please prove they are safe or allow
my blocker." \--- me

~~~
UweSchmidt
No problems here with uBlock Origin and uMatrix.

