European Commission Officially Presents Plan to Address Netflix Like Geo-Blocking

[Centurius]

 

As has been announced earlier this year the European Commission has long seen geo-blocking within the common market as a problem and has been wanting to address it via policy. Such policy has been announced today and would address services such as Netflix but also BBC's iPlayer and HBO Go.

 

Under this new proposal these services would need to be made available within the entire European Union however with the caveat that it would only carry over the library of the country the account was made in(ie. a Dutch person would get the Dutch library in Germany). This would also make such services available in countries that currently do not have their own

 

“We want to ensure the portability of content across borders. People who legally buy content – films, books, football matches, TV series – must be able to carry it with them anywhere they go in Europe,” says Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market.

 

 

This would render the need for a VPN in some cases as no longer needed but in what is the large majority of cases(using a VPN or similar service to get access to another country's library) may cause its own set of problems. Netflix is currently analyzing the proposal and had previously called for an end to geo-blocking however copyright holders might not be as excited about this due to the need to change licensing agreements and the services remain inaccessible to those who reside in a country that does not currently have access to them.

Netflix previously called for an end to all geo-blocking and says it’s happy to provide users with great content wherever they are.

 

“We’re committed to providing Netflix members with great programming wherever they are and are studying the EU’s proposal,” a Netflix spokesperson informs TF.

 

While the plans are a positive development for users, copyright holders may be more skeptical. They will have to rewrite their licensing agreements to allow online access to content across borders.

 

According to the EU Commission many people already try to bypass geo-restrictions through VPN services. Under the new proposal, this is no longer needed.

 

Ironically, the changes may not always be beneficial. In some cases people use a VPN to access a broader library of films and video in another EU country, which will no longer be possible under the new rules.

 

In addition, Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda points out that the proposal only fixes part of the problem. People who are in countries where Netflix and other services aren’t available, will remain without access.

 

 

The proposal could be implemented as soon as 2017.

 

---

 

Personally I'm a bit conflicted about this, on the one hand I support it in principle but the fact that people could possibly be locked into severely restricted libraries without an easy way out I see as a problem. Especially for the more tech-aware that know how to bypass current restrictions. For non-techies however this definitely is very useful.

 

---

 

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/eu-proposal-bans-netflix-style-geo-blocking-and-restrictions-151209/

[StareX]

Hmm.. hope any country in the United Nations will be able to get access and not only Europe.

[dragosudeki]

It sorta fixes it in some aspect, but the region locking would still exist. From the source, it seems like only people who made an American account would benefit from this as they live in the UK. 

[Alurit]

Hmm.. hope any country in the United Nations will be able to get access and not only Europe.

United Nations is not a trade alliance, it doesn't have the authority to do things about entertainment, only military, defence, and human rights

[Murdoch]

This seems like a reasonable idea to allow access to Geo-restricted content across borders in the EU. It falls short of what they were originally speaking about which was a "digital single market". Given that rights holders have individual deals with different companies in different countries in the EU, it would be a logistical nightmare to merge all those markets. But it makes sense if I use UK services such as Sky Go or BBC iPlayer I should be able to access those while traveling in Germany (for example) without having to resort to a VPN.

 

On the flip side of that, Netflix automatically gives you access to a different library depending on where your IP is based, so if they changed the way that occurred and your library was tied to your account and where it was registered, say goodbye to accessing the US library from your UK Netflix account.

[StareX]

United Nations is not a trade alliance, it doesn't have the authority to do things about entertainment, only military, defence, and human rights

then.. I must be confusing with something else .. Unions probably, dunno.. something European .. Can't figure out how to say it from Hebrew to English x_x

[Master Disaster]

This seems very idealistic, naive and utopian.

I agree wholeheartedly with the principals but they're forgetting the fact that the reason most of these things are geo locked is because of regional copyright deals which are legally binding contracts the producers take out to ensure their products are protected.

They can't just plough in and throw idealism around, all they will do is scare all the big boys away leaving the EU with nothing other than TV made in Europe being repeated.

[Murdoch]

This seems very idealistic, naive and utopian.

I agree wholeheartedly with the principals but they're forgetting the fact that the reason most of these things are geo locked is because of regional copyright deals which are legally binding contracts the producers take out to ensure their products are protected.

They can't just plough in and throw idealism around, all they will do is scare all the big boys away leaving the EU with nothing other than TV made in Europe being repeated.

 

I'm not sure you've understood. Those regional copyright deals would still exist, the idea behind this policy is that a French citizen would still have access to their content while in Germany or the UK and not be geo-blocked. That is not to say that copyright deals would be done at an EU wide level.

 

That being said I'm sure the idealistic end goal is a digital common market, but they are not naive they are aware of the complexities of that, which is why it's not currently being proposed. 

[Master Disaster]

I'm not sure you've understood. Those regional copyright deals would still exist, the idea behind this policy is that a French citizen would still have access to their content while in Germany or the UK and not be geo-blocked. That is not to say that copyright deals would be done at an EU wide level.

That being said I'm sure the idealistic end goal is a digital common market, but they are not naive they are aware of the complexities of that, which is why it's not currently being proposed.

Ahh, thanks for clarifying that.

That makes much more sense

Can't quite see how this would work, you would have to show proof of your resident country otherwise any user could just change their profile and access content from anywhere in Europe.

[Murdoch]

Can't quite see how this would work, you would have to show proof of your resident country otherwise any user could just change their profile and access content from anywhere in Europe.

 

It looks like it would be tied to wherever the account was created, if you created a Netflix account in the UK, then traveled to Germany, you'd still have access to the UK library. Now, the other question would be, what would happen to services like BBC iPlayer which don't currently require an account, would we all have to register for all services like that, simply because the EU want to create more bloody rules we have to adhere to. Haha.

[as96]

 

 

Under this new proposal these services would need to be made available within the entire European Union however with the caveat that it would only carry over the library of the country the account was made in(ie. a Dutch person would get the Dutch library in Germany). This would also make such services available in countries that currently do not have their own

Fuck....... oh well still better than nothing, at least I'll be able to access more content from other services.

[Master Disaster]

It looks like it would be tied to wherever the account was created, if you created a Netflix account in the UK, then traveled to Germany, you'd still have access to the UK library. Now, the other question would be, what would happen to services like BBC iPlayer which don't currently require an account, would we all have to register for all services like that, simply because the EU want to create more bloody rules we have to adhere to. Haha.

Yeah, but then couldn't I just change my country to Germany and access German Netflix?

[Centurius]

Yeah, but then couldn't I just change my country to Germany and access German Netflix?

There are multiple fairly easy security measures to put in place against that, like restricting the amount of times you can change country within a certain timeframe.

[EChondo]

Read title, thought they were fixing the actual issue, but it seems like they're just trying to skirt around it while also making it worse.

 

Yeah, expect people going from VPN'ing to another country for better content to now VPN'ing for pirating content.

 

GG European Commission.