t...@pelican.org wrote on 11/21/2019 4:32 AM:
On Wednesday, 20 November, 2019 21:25, "William Herrin" <b...@herrin.us> said:
This is why you don't go after Hulu. You go after the content owners who
conspired to compel Hulu to limit distribution in a way that tortiously
interferes with your contract with your eyeball customers.
Am I the only one who's baffled in the context of a paid service why so much
focus is put on where the consumption takes place (hard), and so little on
where the transaction take place (easy)?
I understand, even if I don't necessarily always agree with, market segmentation,
differentiated pricing, accurate P&L for different business units, etc, that
mean for example if you're a US citizen you need to pay Disney US the prevailing US
price to watch Disney content, but if you're an EU citizen you need to pay Disney
EMEA the prevailing EU price to watch Disney content. Surely that transaction is
the thing content creators and distributors care about?
If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to the
US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm violating
someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so. If a US citizen is
paying for Hulu, from a US billing address, on a US credit card, but happens to
be watching from their hotel in Italy, why does anyone care?
I can see why it's different and more complicated for content that's provided
free but geo-constrained (e.g. BBC iPlayer), but IP geolocation for paid
services seems a terrible waste of time and effort on both sides.
Or am I woefully naive, and it's actually trivial for a non-US resident to come
up with a US credit card and billing address to pay for the service?
Regards,
Tim.
Tim, like you, I've been baffled by this choice as well. Why streaming
video providers continue to choose a costly and convoluted path when a
less convoluted and cheaper path exists to reach (seemingly) the same
destination I will never know. Perhaps one company did it that way so
others just copied the mistake? Perhaps providers feel it's necessary
because not all of them require transactions with a billing/mailing
address all the time (think free/trial services or gift cards)? One can
only attempt to conceive of the inconceivable...
