The media industry is so backward. I can't believe most of them still live in the 90s and these problems haven't been solved yet.
Part of the problem is the broken status of international copyright law and the many incompatible local laws and regulations. If the international community could at least settle for an standard approach to digital distribution over the internet, the world would be a happier place for consumers.
Content publishers make separate deals with distributors (cable & satellite) along their service-area borders, and can therefore sell the same content multiple times over to different regions, most likely charging pricing based on income levels and audience size, etc.. And no doubt a lot of these deals are exclusive, or at the very least timed exclusives..
I know this isn't news to anyone, but I feel like this whole "sell the same thing over and over" must have a much bigger impact on the very slow internationalization of media, rather than any kind of legal hurdles.
Publishers want the status quo because they make multiples of licensing income on the same content, and established distributors want the status quo because they fend off competition (and lock in their customers) from new global competitors who have better business models.
I can see why content producers may want these new deals, to get better control, but don't count on anyone else in the gravy train media chain to do anything other than fight new models tooth and nail until the bitter end.
Here in europe, and I'm assuming the US as well, there's no way to buy and own a movie or TV show in a similar way. It's either DRM or physical media, usually accompanied by long delays before the release reaches europe. Or if available on Amazon Video the film often won't be available in its original language and instead only offer german (for me). Not sure how iTunes or Google handle that but in a nutshell: It's a mess and it has led me to lose interest in film and movies in recent years since a lot of the releases I've been interested in either weren't available or put up barriers left and right.
I buy everything in lossless format and rarely have to look very hard - the few times I had to it turned out to be a vinyl or CD-only release, which wasn't available lossy either. I'm into rather obscure stuff, which may actually help here - I'm not sure but could imagine that it's harder to get lossless audio for the top 40.
Well, here are the stores I use: - Bleep - Boomkat - Qobuz (most iTunes-like with a big selection across all genres, including classic and jazz) - Bandcamp - HDTracks (beware, snake oil! There's no need to go above CD quality in my opinion) - Label / artists stores (yes, many labels or artists sell their music directly without middlemen and in a wider range of formats) - last resort: what.cd or buy the CD and rip it yourself
"The international community" does get together and try to hammer out frameworks of copyright and tariffs which harmonize regulation globally. That's where large chunks of things like the TPP and the TTIP come from, and all the internet-melting complaints about the harmonization of copyright laws and the ability of american corporations to enforce copyright laws on australians and the like. But that's what you're asking for - 'why can't everyone just get together and sort out international copyright law so the media industry can come out of the 90s.' They're trying, but you won't like it when they do.
Even netflix support don't realise this.
In another region, the shows in the language of the region where you pay come with subtitles in the region's native language(s) that can't be turned off in a pleasant way through the UI. It can be done via a hack where you can provide the player with your own custom, empty, subtitles file, but this has to be reloaded for each new episode / movie that you play. It took me a good while to figure out how to do this via forums, it's certainly not something Netflix suggest or encourage, or even seemingly acknowledge, in their help sections.
A related problem is that for shows not in the language of the region where you pay, there aren't any subtitles in your language, even though back in the region where you pay, that same show is available, of course with subtitles in your language.
I don't know if it's Netflix themselves, or draconian licensing conditions that lead to this absurdity, but I suspect the latter as with Netflix's own shows, the problem doesn't exist. It basically boils down to this: because I'm in a non-English region, I can watch a show in English but I'm not allowed to just understand it - I must watch it with subtitles! If it's a non-English show, I can watch it but I am not allowed to have help understanding it with English subtitles, even though they're obviously and trivially available. What is the point of these rules?
Unfortunately they do not allow you to turn on English subtitles, and their translation is incredibly poor.
I know of one difference. Jimmy Carr advertised on twitter his new special more than a month ago. Still not available in the US. That just makes no sense to me, and not that I'm reminded of this I think I'll torrent it.
EDIT: hmm, googling doesn't show there is a Jimmy Carr netflix special. The tweet in question: