EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
30% for each country seems really high to me. As usual for regulation, there will likely be high unintended consequences. While in the US and elsewhere there will be thousands of movies available, if Netflix can only get the rights to 90 Belgian films, they aren't going to pay through the nose to create or purchase many more movies. They will just trim down the available movies in Belgium to 300. After all, no competition will be able to do any better.
Worst case scenario, someone may corner the market on digital rights to some country's movies, then they will be the only ones that can provide any sort of streaming service. That country will only have access to an expensive service with a limited selection.
In those cases, the locals will just continue to pirate movies as the only way to reasonable access them online, and the local film industry will be no better off than before as their consumers will be accustomed to getting their movies for free.
Imagine if every state in the US did this, what Netflix would look like. 30% of movies in Indiana need to be created in Indiana. Netflix would suck, ha.
I foresee shrinking catalogues and a massive increase in piracy. Go EU!
https://www.visitnorway.com/media/news-from-norway/finally-t...
Seems like the media production is pretty centralized in the US. It's hard to compare with Europe, where most nations have different languages, their own TV stations (producing their own content) and their own funds to support productions of movies.
It would be a shame if these biotopes of media production would get dried out because of US monopolies.
At least for Netflix I know that they license movies/tv shows produced in my country and they actively recommend it to me.
Is the EU suggesting that Malta's population should only be able to stream content 2x the volume of its domestic content output? And that's assuming the likes of Netflix was able to hoover up all of that domestic output which seems untenable.
[Edited to fix typo.]
So even assuming the current catalogue is completely devoid of Maltese movies, there is still some margin available to fulfil the strictest requirements. Although I think the actual requirements is to include 30% movies from the EU.
> The proposals will require that streaming services give over at least 30% of their on-demand catalogues to original productions made in each EU country where a service is provided (individual EU Member States could choose to set the content bar even higher, at 40%)
Europe is much more culturally diverse than the US. This is what this regulation is about.
- What language do they speak?
- What cultural nuances are they bringing to their films? Local food, local culture?
99% of US films have little to do with international perspectives, much less with local cultures.
A black man eating a Big Mac is a person eating a Big Mac, no matter how black he is.
What is going to happen is that Netflix will get the rights to stream (hopefully quality) local movies and series. That's gonna differ per country in EU. For example, some movies get broadcasted once or twice on public TV and that's it. Youth however mainly or even only stream. So they can get to see the movies they paid for (via tax) but via Netflix now, and Netflix can acquire them [reasonably] cheap. Everyone wins.
Right now, there's a bunch of quality EU series on Netflix already such as Casa De Papel and Dark.
If I want to watch them in the US, I either have to pay per-episode/season on Google/Amazon/iTunes. CBS offers access to their entire library, but at $10/mo, it's more than a Netflix subscription.
My point is just that comments about the Netflix library being better in the US vs elsewhere holds true less and less every day.
Why would the seller sell cheap, knowing that the buyer is forced by law to buy?
It's a problem with TV or cinema, since there is limited space and time on it, but with streaming, Netflix can just put it in the catalog and let everyone not click on it...
Just wanna add to this. Babylon Berlin is also shockingly great. Wish Netflix could introduce more series like this to the US market.
Netflix from my understanding can pay less upfront for rights to well known movies outside the U.S. (https://flixed.io/newest-best-netflix-movies/).
The problem with Netflix from a non-U.S. region viewer is its lackluster offering of native language movies.
One of the rules of EU is that you should as much as possible not treat foreign europeans any differently than national ones. So german, belgian, french, whatever content should pass the bar for local content anywhere in the EU.
Forcing Spotify or Apple Music to make at least 30% of their content locally produced music seems... Exceedingly high.
Perhaps you could argue that smaller language groups should also be supported. According to the 2010 USA Census, there were 2.9 million people in the USA who spoke Chinese. I think proportional representation could be useful, though clearly you could not give each language group 30% of the streaming service. But if the regulation insisted that the movies streamed had to match the languages, proportional to the demographics of the USA, I think the streaming services would be the better for it.
It sounds like you are defending Netflix in order for them to continue to offer an inferior product outside of the US.
Frankly, it's amazing that so many regional policies, both regulatory (like GDPR) and policy (region encoding) have survived in the modern internet. Maybe in an IPv6 world we can move towards IP addresses not containing any significant geo-IP information, making such attempts moot. Probably not, but it's a nice dream.
The question is to whom the regulations apply in this case -- presumably Netflix has the primary responsibility, but some regulations are expansive in scope. For example, money laundering regulations require not only that you report certain particular transaction types and not knowingly support money laundering, but that you also go out of your way to monitor and attempt to detect money laundering.
So in theory, regulations for Netflix could also require that Netflix go out of their way to prevent users using VPNs or IP address masking in order to access non-regional Netflix content. Or they could require VPN providers to ensure that they don't allow their customers to do that. Or they could assign criminal or civil penalties for individuals who attempt to circumvent regional restrictions. Or they could just say that Netflix is only responsible for serving content compatible with the user's stated region, and leave it at that.
Course that doesn't fit the narrative of "Regulation is bad"
> Course that doesn't fit the narrative of "Regulation is bad"
I would argue that it does.
This is about all the other streaming services, like Amazon, Hulu, Disney, etc., which produce almost no shows outside of North America. The EU is trying to force them to play ball.
And they'll succeed...in getting all of those services to add token local crap to the catalog. Expect to see a lot of very low-budget teen dramas and single-set movies if this passes. The EU believes that this will increase funding for EU "cultural" productions, but the more likely result is an entire generation of Uwe Bolls filling up EU's streaming services with utter crap. (Uwe Boll, for those who do not know, was a German filmmaker who took advantage of EU/German film incentives to convince major studios to let him make a number of very bad films, like Postal and the Dungeon Siege movie. Germany eliminated those incentives after a few years almost entirely because of him, and Uwe Boll hasn't managed to make a film since.)
Notably, those accidentally local films would probably have appeared in the catalogue anyways.
In similar fashion, the US gov is required to give a chunk of its business to minority run companies, and so you now have companies whose sole value is having a disabled alaskan female at the head, to land the contract, and then immediately contract out the entire thing to an 'actual' business to handle.
So I expect that it wouldn't be merely as bad as reducing netflix's catalogue. It will entirely cripple each countries local film industries (at least, if they are, or were going to be, dependent on streaming services for income). This can only be good for countries that already have a strong film industry.
Lots of countries have minimum local content provisions. And in none of those countries have their been companies whose sole job it is to produce garbage content. You know why ? Because (a) nobody wants to work or be involved with garbage, (b) the cost of producing garbage is often the same as producing something amazing, (c) its hard for writers to have the motivation to deliberately write garbage.
Often local content (due to their being less money) are really thoughtful, low budget dramas/thrillers which aren't expensive. And contribute greatly to teaching the world how people live. Case in point: Nordic police dramas. They also can be hugely popular/profitable internationally.
Im not saying good things won’t be produced, I’m saying the market will optimize, and theres a very simple, clear and obvious “happy path” that directly conflicts with the spirit and intent of this law. I don’t know of a universe we can live in where money isn’t the primary motivator of a (generally open) market. I also don’t know of a universe where it costs the same to do more work than less, or a universe where people globally refuse shit work, when the price is (more than) right.
There are dozens of French and German films made under this theory.
If you somehow blocked this garbage film industry as well as implemented a minimum requirement rule, such that only “good” films counted to the percentage, and given that “good” is relatively difficult to meet, so supply is severely constrained, then lockout is not unimaginable. But it’d probably still be difficult without additional regulation: prices would simply increase until the strangehold was broken (as a studio, what do I care about netflix’s monopoly if amazon is willing to pony up?). It would still be locked down to a handful of major services, but that’s a scenario that comes about with or without this law
Also an addendum example: chinese actors/directors/producers in film, whose primary value is allowing potential access to china distribution.
When you substitute merit for nationality (or most other things), its trivial to game, and it will be gamed.
The direct effect was a tsunami of money poored into anyone that could produce anything in French, just to meet the quota.
Content is fast to produce and there is no judgement on quality regarding the quota. For radio the impact was bigger, but I think it just accelerated a trend of people moving to on demand music anyway.
The article misstates what the proposal actually says. It's a quota of 30% on "European works". The term is defined in Article 1 (1) (n) of Directive 2010/13/EU [1], which the proposal seeks to amend; it includes works originating in the member states, works originating in countries that are parties to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, and works coproduced based on agreements between the EU and third countries. (There is an additional provision ensuring that the movies are actually produced mainly in these countries and not just through letterbox companies having a legal presence there.)
So, Netflix can definitely offer French movies to Belgian viewers in order to fulfill their quota or British movies (even after Brexit, the UK will remain a party to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television) to Irish viewers.
An overview on the state of the legislation can, as with most EU legislation, be found on the European Parliament's legislative train website [2].
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:...
[2] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-connec...
And you'd be surprised. The UK, France, and Germany combined already outproduce America in terms of movies [1] (quality may be a different story, of course).
The proposition is also to promote production from anywhere else within the EU to 'a' national market, and therefore exposing an audience to TV shows/films they wouldn't have access to through their national broadcaster. I do believe this is unfair on streaming service as the national markets are still closely guarded market, and national network should be made subject to the same constraint. I would even go one step further and break the national airwave license in favor of a European one, but that is going to be another discussion entirely.
Good shows should earn their ratings, not be force fed- if your culture is so great France and Germany you wouldn't need these subsidies. Netflix is not a public broadcaster.
Also Netflix is actually opening a European production hub thus investing in local culture the good way.
I don't understand. Do the Dutch hate their own programmes? Why would they bother making shows they don't want to watch?
> if your culture is so great France and Germany you wouldn't need these subsidies.
I'm not sure they need them, just that it helps promote it. These shows might not necessarily be record-smashing-popular, but local film/TV from other countries routinely makes it's way to the US with sizable audiences (despite the US drowning in it's own media). Even childrens shows often have broad appeal. (as just a few examples, see 'Degrassi' from Canada, 'PJ Masks' and 'Miraculous' from France, 'Sarah and Duck' from Britain, 'Octonauts' from Ireland).
Some of those are funded in part from "cultural quotas" (various implementations of similar ideas) such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content . But it doesn't mean they aren't popular or good on their own.
Same reason any culture creates art, by choice. Not all art has to be accepted (or forced) and many times the value to its creator and/or a small subset of patrons is enough to justify it.
>> if your culture is so great France and Germany you wouldn't need these subsidies. Netflix is not a public broadcaster.
> I'm not sure they need them, just that it helps promote it
I added more context to the original quote. I assume the original poster didn't mean "subsidies" as financial assistance, but instead misused the word to mean restrictions on foreign content. I think most agree grants for the arts have value due to some forms of art being unsustainable on their own.
Yep.
> Why would they bother making shows they don't want to watch?
Subsidies.
But they don't like crap, and most of the local production is, unfortunately, just a shitty version of US stuff. The same bland generic ideas, but with worse acting, scripts, and production, on a lower budget.
[0]: https://www.thelocal.de/20171122/netflix-premiers-first-ever...
Why should protectionism be embraced for cultural exports when the EU was literally established to eliminate protectionism for other exports?
Not to mention, that this is one of the reasons we still have borders, wars, etc, etc.
If a state wants to sponsor work and make it available at low costs I'm sure content services would jump to provide it.
All this does is either increase cost or reduce available selection in the affected markets. If the subscribers don't want the content they shouldn't be forced to pay for it. I live in Austria and do not want to have my selection reduced or more Austrian content.
Countries should try to compete on the global market place -- entertainment is one area where good content easily jumps borders.
I have my own site: Linux.org.ua. At beginning, it was very popular site because it was the top national site about Linux. Then Google turned switch (in 2007?) and redirected all our national traffic to linux.org.ru, because 150M Russians is way more than 50M Ukrainians. Same for other sites, so almost all our niche national sites died.
Who should they sponsor? By getting the people who are already efficiently producing programmes they at least seem to be targeting for efficient content production?
In general I appreciate the sentiment - both financial and cultural - but the proposed implementation does seem barmy. A sensible quota would be something like 1%.
Protectionism is bad in all its forms.
1. English-language films make more money than French-language films because there are more English speakers than French speakers.
2. Because of this, an English-language film can profitably have a bigger budget, allowing better production values.
3. Once a film has been produced, the rights will get sold in every foreign market - with the price set by auction, not by the film's production costs. If French broadcasters only bid $15 million for a $150 million film, they get it for that price.
4. The upshot of _this_ is English-language films look 10 times more expensive than French-language films that cost the same.
5. This makes it extremely hard for French language films to compete.
The reason the French are so protective is because they believe, in the absence of such protection, the French film industry would get its ass kicked by the English-language film industry.
Oh, and for 'English-language' and 'French-language' above, you can insert a bunch of stuff about national culture. How do the police and courts act in your film? What food do we see people eating? What attitudes to sex, violence and alcohol do the good guys show? What political systems are shown, and how do characters view and interact with them? What values motivate the lead characters? What sort of things does the military get sent to do? How do employees interact with their bosses? What do roads and cars look like? Is there literally a character named Captain America?
This assumes some zero-sum level of media the public can support and that money is enough to control it. I don't believe in either of those things wrt the arts and patronage can come in many forms, but restricting amounts of art in any direction by fiat is wrong.
If you cannot compete on budget, perhaps you can compete on plot and story lines. One has to remember that the salaries that you have to pay Hollywood actors are much higher than what people in most other countries would make.
Yet it was the basis for economic growth of every developed economy. From the US, Germany, Japan to China.
The only countries that have no protectionism and free markets are poor African ones that find themselves under the IMFs thumb. All of which have stagnating economies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang
He has written a lot on this subject.
Also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs
Jane Jacobs is another who writes very clearly on the role protecting home markets ply in development.
Anecdotally, Victorian Britain was full of indignant stories about Yankees stealing intellectual property. One of the reasons Dickens conducted his US tours was to try and plead the case for payment with folk who were pirating his work.
1. Protectionism resulted in greater economic growth for the US, Germany, Japan, and China.
The example of China is particularly egregious since it was China's economic liberalization reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, including opening up to foreign investment and lifting protectionist policies, that resulted in massive economic growth and massive poverty reduction.
2. There is a positive correlation between protectionism and development in African countries. This is ironic because protectionism is a major source of harm for African countries. From the introduction of [5]:
In recent years, as African governments and development advocates have stepped up their campaign to reform the trade policies of rich countries, the issue of agricultural protectionism has come to the forefront. This is a highly divisive issue, with rich countries resisting poor countries' demands for major changes... Critics highlight the hypocrisy of rich countries giving lip service to free trade while maintaining tariff barriers and paying subsidies to their farmers. Their argument that agricultural protectionism places an unfair burden on Africa is becoming a mainstream view.
There is a consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare [1][2][3][4], so rapsey's extraordinary claim to the contrary requires extraordinary evidence. As Gregory Mankiw says [6], "Few propositions command as much consensus among professional economists as that open world trade increases economic growth and raises living standards."
[1] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/675410
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/upshot/economists-actuall...
[3] https://piie.com/newsroom/short-videos/why-after-200-years-c...
[4] https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/2004/09/...
[5] https://www.jstor.org/stable/40209918
[6] http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/05/outsourcing-redux.htm...
Not lifting completely, just enough to facilitate economic growth. Importing anything in the US, EU or China is process full of protectionist policies and tariffs that you must overcome.
The proof is in the pudding. The right amount of protectionism has proven to work in every successfully developed country. There are NO exceptions.
> "Few propositions command as much consensus among professional economists as that open world trade increases economic growth and raises living standards."
Economics would not be the first field with a popular theory that is complete nonsense that whenever tried has only resulted in catastrophe. Because it only works well in mathematical models instead of the read world.
Funny how all those economists have not convinced a single developed country to believe their theories and put them into practice.
What is this supposed to prove?
> The right amount of protectionism has proven to work in every successfully developed country.
Every developed country has different amounts of protectionism. I have no idea what you mean by the "right" amount.
> Economics would not be the first field with a popular theory that is complete nonsense
What popular theory is "complete nonsense"?
> that whenever tried has only resulted in catastrophe
Which catastrophe?
> Funny how all those economists have not convinced a single developed country to believe their theories and put them into practice.
So not convincing someone to implement a good policy means the policy is bad?
Marketplaces are amoral. They incentivize supply to satisfy demand. There's nothing that ensures that demand morally good or bad, and the intermediation effect of monetary transactions can disguise morally problematic inputs to goods that satisfy demand, so it can encourage immoral production, like polluting industries or child labour.
Our economies are largely service and manufacturing based. Is one country better at programming, manufacturing, cooking, etc. then another? All of these things are taught and developed. Any country can become good at any of these service or manufacturing jobs. China is a manufacturing powerhouse, but so is the US, Germany and South Korea.
China and South Korea both had extremely clear strategies set forth by their governments to develop a manufacturing base over the past 30 years. What point in there in some comparative advantage theory? Nothing is innate and unchangeable. Just good economic policy.
The isolationism EU is beginning to display is starting to worry even me and the alternative is a bunch of UKIP-like nationalist which I am not really a big fan of.
Of course, it probably helps that Canada has plenty of cultural and linguistic similarities to the United States. Preserving the native culture of, say, Denmark through Danish Content regulations on popular entertainment means producing content that isn't easily consumed outside of Denmark, whereas a ton of Canadian Content can be easily marketed in the United States.
Not that I agree with it...
If one appears to beget the other they might as well be the same. I sympathize with countries desiring sovereignty on these issues that should remain at the country level.
But more specifically, what I was arguing is that these kinds of decisions are not why people want to leave (sannee's point above). People want to leave due to poor people not having had adequate political representation for a long time, thus begetting populism when the financial crisis hit us. Not because of TV rules being agreed with other countries (sorry for the strawman, but it makes the point).
I'm not sure that's true. I think the EU, as a non-political economic union gives you that cake. It's the political side keeping you from eating it. I think there are many financial policies that can be properly disentangled from political beliefs and the ones that can't should be deferred.
TV rules are a microcosm of the real issue: a political union making political decisions when some of its less influential members would prefer such not-purely-economical decisions be delegated. (at least this is what it looks like from the outside)
The EU as a single market has great potential. But that needs uniform and standardized access, which is politics.
And no, it wouldn't work without the political overlay (or foundations), because member states are already each in a non pure market state, and it would take a very long time for those politically disjoint markets to standarize and uniformize.
And there is power in numbers. The EU is relevant. England will soon find out how irrelevant it is alone.
It's not absolute and binary, and the inability to recognize that and delegate on issues which are more political than financial is what causes issues. Passing laws on streaming providers in England based on French ideals of cultural protection is exactly the issue. This should remain a nation-level issue yet the legislators would way rather use the leverage of the super-nation since they can as opposed to whether they should.
> The EU as a single market has great potential. But that needs uniform and standardized access, which is politics.
It doesn't need 100% uniform and standardized access. There are limits to standardization. If they really wanted to be uniform, they'd do so in the language, but clearly the goal is not absolute uniformity. It is uniformity within reason and delegate to nations for other aspects (such as language). It's what is chosen to be delegated that is the issue.
> And there is power in numbers. The EU is relevant. England will soon find out how irrelevant it is alone.
Meh, as relevant as before and many other nations. Self determinism is where real power lies as it is obvious that one's own house should be clean before projecting. The EU can increase its influence and delegate its cultural rulemaking at the same time but it seems that the approach of individual governments, such as those that believe culture should be enforced via legal restrictions, reign.
I think I could handle that.
Yet they have the fundamentals to be at least at Australian and Canadian levels of prosperity.
Too many politicians in the UK are trying to ensure the economy tanks when the UK leaves the EU.
Fair point. Though the future might not be so rosy. But in an unfortunate timeline those countries are likely to quickly align with some others anyway.
However, deals made in peace are usually better.
This appears to be an outgrowth of that.
>> But will you leave others the choice to watch what they want?
> Yes
Can't at one point say it's not wrong to restrict content and at another point say you support people watching any content they want. Either you're for laws on amount of content or you accept that there is no ceiling/limits which includes what you subjectively perceive as dumb.
If some streaming service has to cut 80% of its offerings, they will keep the Transformers and Marvel movies and cut the smaller ones.
Even if they made more specific regulation to remove those blockbusters, which will annoy the general population, almost all regulation benefits the large incumbents in the long run. They have the resources to figure out how to game the system.
>they will keep the Transformers and Marvel movies and cut the smaller ones.
Most of the bigger franchises have already become "thought provoking" and "diverse" propaganda
If individual countries want to require a local content quota, Netflix/Amazon/etc will simply cut them off. When it's a massive market, that's vastly less likely.
Giving individual countries an opt-out from the EU-wide rules just provides an opportunity to divide and conquer.
Australia has similar content quotas for broadcast television, but hasn't tried to apply them to streaming services yet. Of course, for 25M people, our leverage is substantially less.
And it's getting worse.
Hollywood is "pre-sanitizing" its movies for China because of the increasing revenue there from secondary release.
There's economies of scale to producing products addressed to the majority, and minorities suffer as a result. This doesn't just affect cultural products. Who wants the high street in their town to be filled with chain shops, identikit and no different from the next town over?
No, totally not.
Promoting national and regional content is probably something that the populist anti-EU types would support anyhow.
I understand the EU has woes, and some rulings might cause problems ... but this ruling isn't an example of that.
Sure, I would not be surprised if this concrete instance of such a regulation was welcomed in these circles (consistency isn't strong suite of some), but the more broad point stands.
It seems that fear is making them adopt such a defensive approach that it is stopping them to see how their efforts are actually sucessively destroying any remnant of representativeness they might still have.
If this trend (which started with the financial crisis in 2008/9) continues, the EU might end up being France and Germany alone in a few decades.
FWIW, this is the main side of the EU that I'm aware of: laughably bad lawmaking, based on complete unawareness of (or apathy towards?) the concept that the consequences of policies aren't based on wishing on a star that they be a certain way.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not sure I'd rather live (as I do) under the US's policy regime than I would under the EU's. But our pathologies of governance are different ones.
You know how the saying goes, you can live under US domestic policy or US foreign policy, but you can’t escape US policy. The idea of the EU was that by working together the member states could get their way in the face of that US foreign policy more often than they would on their own. In the absence of a strong EU, the US and China are pretty much unrestrained in Europe.
These region-restricted distribution contracts should not exist anymore in Europe. It's from the video tape era, it belongs in a landfill.
I would bet that the majority of this local programming will only be available in the country where it is produced.
They would blacklist IPs from public VPNs like Private Internet Access, but you could easily just set up OpenVPN on a Linode to get around that.
I know there are bad German movies. But with the biggest film studio in Europe being right next to Berlin, I think saying "there are no good German movies" it's a bit too much. The fact alone that there are decent German movies for children seems to me like a plus - I probably won't go see "Das schönste Mädchen der Welt", but I'm not opposed to it.
Disclaimer: I liked Danni Lowinski, and would like to watch Deutschland 83.
I fear for the same as a Dane, Danish movies are crap.
You had to reach back 37 years to fill out your list of... five movies. That's a bit telling, no?
Sorry for not making that point clearer.
I'd be fine with a restriction like "30%+ EU movies" or even "50%+ EU movies" (or even "50%+ EU movies, including at least 10% German"). But _German_ movies specifically? That's pointlessly nationalistic.
There isn't 1 good German movie for every 2-3 good international movies. Even personal preference aside the numbers simply don't add up if you assume that there at least two other countries producing as many good movies as Germany does.
So this won't mean more "Goodbye Lenin", it will mean more "Hui Buh, das Schlossgespenst". If we're lucky.
If we're not lucky, it won't mean less Hollywood blockbusters, it will mean less international non-Hollywood movies. Because the Hollywood blockbusters are reliable money printing machines.
So instead of having a lot of Hollywood movies and also a lot of international movies (including several movies from Asia and South America) and a select few German movies, we'll end up with a lot of Hollywood movies and a lot of German movies, basically the same thing you see on regular TV.
Just look at it from Netflix's perspective: you want to add Black Panther because people will want to watch it. To keep the quote you'll have to add another German movie but you can also fit in another international one. Which international movie will you pick? Another Hollywood superhero movie or a lesser known French movie?
However, since I especially like Swedish crime drama, I can give you specific recommendations of crime drama movies and TV-series from Sweden and other countries.
* Snabba Cash I, II, III ("Easy Money" I, II, III)
* Wallander (yeah, the original Swedish one - there are many)
* Beck (there are many)
* Jägarna ("The Hunters", there's two)
* Midnight Sun ("Midnattssol"; TV series taking place in Lappland)
In addition to watching a crime drama of the kind which you might not have not seen, you get to sight-see places as they are. I especially liked the visual appearance of The Midnattssol since it takes place in Lappland, which I think is beautiful in a rugged way.
Also, you may have seen Hollywood remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There's a Swedish original which can be interesting to watch.
A Swedish-Danish series called "The Bridge" (Bro) is very good, but I have not seen it.
An Italian (actually Italian-German) series called "Gomorrah" is very good too, I heard. I have not seen that either, though.
I have yet to fully explore all the crime drama from other European countries; I've seen some Finnish ones (like "Vares") and they were OK too.
Hope this helps.
Edit: forgot Snabba Cash III!
Luther, Cracker, Broadchurch come to mind. Even the UK version of Law & Order was surprisingly watchable.
I would say the UK is a strong contender but mostly because BBC and Channel 4 produce pretty high quality straight-to-TV movies.
Looking back, I’m morbidly curious what sort of weird chain of events lead to this.
In 2009 the Portuguese government introduced a mandatory quota of 25% Portuguese music in all radio stations. It was absolutely terrible at the time as all Portuguese music was invariably shitty. Flash forward 9 years and, in my opinion, things are much better. We still have a bunch of bad music but meanwhile a lot new quality artists appeared and became popular. Maybe it has nothing to do with the quota's but take it as you will.
Not possible and for sure nothing people even want. We have two or three channels in Sweden that makes original content that could go up on Netflix. And they don't really have more than one or two series (10 episodes max) running at a time per season. Two of the channels have their own streaming service (C-More, Viaplay), the third is public service who also puts it up there (SVT Play) for a good long time.
There is plenty of really bad content that the tv channels can sell to Netflix though. A good way for a traditional tv company to stay alive a bit longer. But then there's HBO and others that needs exclusive rights to the content so probably still not possible.
https://advanced-television.com/2018/04/27/svods-set-for-eu-... > at least 30 per cent share of European content.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/eu-council-raises-eu-conten... > to buy European content for the European market
https://www.digitaltveurope.com/2018/04/27/eu-bodies-agree-3... > a quota of 30% for European works on their platforms
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/26/eu-third-... > will have to dedicate 30% of their output to TV shows and films made in Europe
etc, etc.
Unless TechCrunch has some new inside information, this article is wrong. And given that it's TechCrunch... it's probably wrong.
Presumably that's what will happen -- unless they mandate hours viewed and then we in the UK will have to watch an hour of "puddle drying in Stratham" before we can watch a foreign movie.
Of course the metric could be "catalogue hours", in which case one 500 hour showing of "Silence, a tribute to John Cage" might satisfy the requirement.
TL;DR how will they define the quota, what constitutes a TV programme.
I'm Irish, we don't produce that much stuff. If it has to represent 30% of the catalogue, that catalogue is going to have to shrink massively.
It was big news in Croatia that Netflix got a local TV show available in its catalogue a few months ago (The Paper, AKA Novine in Croatian). As far as I can tell, it remains the only one.
In practice, does that mean that Netflix would have to reduce their Croatian catalogue to like three shows until they purchase the rights to reproduce additional domestic ones?
If it can be from any EU country, then the country will be France. France already has laws like this and has historically invested in their content industry, so it should be (should) fairly easy to license that content and fills the requirements.
[0]https://variety.com/2018/film/news/netflix-amazon-local-prod...
> cultural difference risks being steamrollered before it until nothing but tedious superhero tropes remain.
> And, frankly, if you’ve seen one superhero movie you’ve seen them all. So the move — which will probably draw loud and hair-raising screams from U.S. commentators — is, nonetheless, A Good Thing.
> rather than just doing the easy thing of fencing yet more Marvel superhero movies.
In fact, it seems so amateurish that I wondered if this was even real. Sadly, I see it reported by multiple sites.
Wow. I’m suprised TechCrunch actually published this. Has their quality dropped that dramatically?
For example: a German film might be kept out of the Austrian catalogue to prevent increasing the quota of Austrian content above what's available.
Rules for nonlinear media like Netflix basically state that they have to promote insofar possible European productions, but without hard numbers. I can imagine that these vague rules are blatantly ignored by modern streaming providers, so at least in Belgium you could see this as simply a more specific wording of already existing rules.
(I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this btw, I'm just providing some context for those interested.)
I wouldn't argue with a much smaller quota, like half a percent or so, but this is not helpful.
I'd be surprised if this didn't originate in France, they have always been concerned about English influence, and I think they already have such a quota for their radio programmes.
There is 27 countries in EU, so how the hell will that work.
Not only will Netflix have to produce local content but will have to hide. French stuff from Germans to keep 60% of the prime Holywood stuff.
Unless I'm missing something - the maths seem off.
Another plus for Brexit. We have BBC for local stuff, give me back Futurama.
(that being said, there is a great none English football team owning drama.. Plus that French secret service drama/comedy.. Good netflix original stuff I watch with subtitles)
It seems patently ridiculous that Netflix does not have standing here. The law directly affects Netflix, in a negative way. How could they not have standing?
Producers can secure rights to a movie that in order to retain the rights, the must produce a film - of any quality. That's how 1994 version of Fantastic Four was made. A low budget B-movie to prevent the rights being transferred back to Stan Lee.
So this regional 30% could be just as riveting as a watching a chimney stack. Though may work in parts of Italy.
An on-demand catalog is also quite different from broadcast, being measured by content availability rather than transmission time, and a 30% (or higher) local content bar seems to me to be a rather high level for an on-demand service, however, I read elsewhere [0] that Netflix is already close to meeting this, so the restriction is not likely to be too onerous for them at least.
[0] https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/04/eu-will-force-netflix-and...
So Netflix will just end up licensing the cheapest locally content to meet their quota. This content will also be the poorest, which will turn people away from locally produced content.
Another job well done by the EU.
PS: If any Netflix exec sees this, I'm available for creating french films at the rate of 200 EUR / hour.
It is beyond me how those numbnuts in Brussels keep thinking up more stupid and useless plans each time. Not only is it completely up to streaming services what they do and do not offer in terms of content, now you force those services to split up what they show per country, decentralising their services, since it's not possible to adhere to the 30% rule otherwise.
But this is simply stupid. This is straight-up protectionism / weird national pride.
You may question your sources of information.
You HAVE to have a wide based supply and therefore you have to be a large international company, likely American, since they will be the only ones who can source the most desirable content.
This is going to be a disaster that will have consequences directly in opposition to the publicly intended ones.
EU, ‘this one goes to 360%’
Literally the only way to do that would be for Netflix to take down movies for which they haven't secured the rights in every EU country. That'd mean they have to drop a massive chunk of their catalog, because media rights are sold piecemeal, so there are very few things for which they have distribution rights in every EU country[0].
[0] Ironically, this includes Netflix originals.
I look forward to the EU suddenly telling the current rightsholders that their distribution rights have been seized by the state.
For instance for each 10% of your catalog that is made up of region local content, you get an 8% tax deduction. As companies adjusted to the new incentives, these values could be gradually lowered over time. This would help spur on new competitors as well as give established players a great motivation to not only provide a sufficient amount of local content, but also heavily promote it, in efforts to try to drive demand make it commercially viable to make even larger chunks of their catalog local.
Instead we get this, which is going to do little except encourage the bare minimum under threat of penalty. Just doesn't seem very logical.
Either way, it's not a great idea, because... well, some countries simply make more/better shows than others. It's like in any other area of business, where some countries more representation in each industry, like how America's done well with films and tech because of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. All this sort of setup does is encourage streaming services to run poor quality, disliked shows to fill a quota at the expense of what's actually best or most appreciated by its audience.
For them to evade this proposed regulation, is to ensure that they don't produce "THEIR" own content to sell?
I suppose YouTube Premium falls under this?
Furthermore, this does not solve the problem of having strong EU contenders to Netflix, Hulu and whatever else is out there. It is better for the EU to fund something that can fight on its own two feet rather than using these punitive measures that prevent people from watching things that they _paid_ for and _want_ to watch.
That argument is so silly and reductionist that, to me, it invalidates the rest of the opinions expressed in this article.
If they provide service in more than 3 countries (and, they do) then it is a mathematical impossibility to meet that limit in every single country. I don't get it.
Presumably, that means they would only have to have 30% of content be from one's own country, the rest can be from anywhere.
30% from the UK, plus 30% from France, plus 30% from Germany, only leaves 10% left for Spain.
EDIT: Are they saying they only want French content to be available in France, and they only want German content available in Germany, etc.? That seems nonsensical.
That's what techcrunch says but I think they misinterpreted the Vanity article they used as their source.
Hopefully it won't affect us in the UK, but my fear would be that it leads to more walls being put up around content and services for EU Internet users, as has happened with GDPR.
It's also why the version of Dire Straits' Money For Nothing that plays on most SiriusXM stations is the sanitized, politically correct Canadian version, not the real version that was played on American radio in the 1980's. Though that version does play occasionally on channels like Deep Tracks.
Generally, the higher-budget shows are shot in the US. Largely, because the cast members on higher budget shows are less willing to move to Canada for half of the year. Compare, e.g., Suits and other USA shows (ironically, now all filmed in Canada) with Better Caul Saul/AMC shows or Mayans MC/FX shows (generally, filmed on location).
Canadian-focused channels were a specific requirement for Sirius to sell radios in Canada. Before that, there were no Canadian channels, and people would import Sirius radios from border towns.
They pushed through GDRP and are now on a regulation high or something...
I'm in EU. A Good Thing is letting me watch whatever the fuck I want. It's a real dystopia if the state decides which movies you should or shouldn't watch.
Let's not pretend there aren't strong tendencies towards centralization and homogenization in media. (That we could, most charitably, ascribe to efficiency and risk management)
On the other side, yes, protectionism leads to a lot of otherwise unmarketable things being produced (looking at you, France).
But balance doesn't seem like too much to ask. Because Hollywood is doing fuck all for diversity.
Six million Wakandans might disagree with you...
He means in movies, and especially Hollywood movies.
Besides concerning just comics (and including titles that have insignificant circulation) the list is from all over the world. You thought Brazil and Mexico don't have their own superheroes in comics? That's not really what was asked.
Not to mention that without the token gestures to american black rights references, it's a totally sterotypical superhero movie, with the same cliche manifested destiny for the hero, the same cliche choices, etc.
Numbers picked from thin air as an example, but I still say that it quite severely limits my choice as an individual.
It's not like content can't come from Australia that can compete on its own, like AC/DC and The Crocodile Hunter. If anything this policy is probably holding back such greats from happening because it's easier to just meet the lower bar of participating in the Australian content quota.
Agreed, but fortunately this isn't that. Although the big the question is if this will lead more EU content being added to the services or more non-EU content being removed from the service to make the quotas. The other risk is that Netflix etc. will basically just say "go out and find me 150 hours of EU made content, I don't care what it is, for as little money as possible so we can fulfill our quota" and that this will do little or nothing to promote actual quality or interesting work.
Either way though it's still the services and not the state that decide which movies "you should or shouldn't watch"
Good news, Netflix already do this.
If the EU wants original cultural content, subsidize that content, and perhaps use anti-trust law or direct subsidy to coerce Netflix to license this content. But there is no active harm done in Netflix et. al. choosing what is popular. Unless they actively work to keep cultural content off their platforms, this kind of hard requirement is simply outrageous.
You really want the state deciding what you watch?
[0]: https://www.the-numbers.com/Luxembourg/movies/year/2016
Nowhere do I see in the source that "local content" is determined per country instead of EU-wide. It also says that Netflix is already close to 30%.
Also, 833 movies is more than what is available in most of Europe, already (but I'm not sure about Luxembourg specifically, obviously it's an outlier).
[0]https://variety.com/2018/film/news/netflix-amazon-local-prod...
The market just means that you personally decide what you watch, by choosing what to spend your own money on.
You'd rather have that decision made by someone else, instead of by you?
While I disagree in part with this, it is not forcing you on the chair and autoplaying a cult movie. You still watch what you want.
An Even Better Thing is to not have whole generations conditioned from childhood (by a system that distributes predominantly Hollywood movies for them to watch), to believe that those are "whatever the fuck" they actually want as free agents to watch.
An Even Better Thing is to introduce people to multiple cinematic cultures (and multiple cultures in general), not just the global monoculture that pushes the cultural and political agendas of the country that makes it, and expresses its own preoccupation and worldview as if the rest 95% of the world doesn't matter.
Especially since there are tens of different cultures and perspectives within the EU to represent. Not just the global fast food movies that are cheap to purchase and project because EU distributors only pay for screening rights (and not for their production costs).
That's parents job. Just as it is important that you give healthy food to your children and don't just let them eat fast food even if they would prefer it, same goes for entertainment. But the state shouldn't set a limit on burgers per month for you.
Kids aren't solely cultivated (not sure if that's the best term) by their parents (unless in Deliverance style situations).
They are also cultivated (and even more so) by school, tv, parents friends, their friends, the internet, social media, advertisement, society at large, and so on.
>But the state shouldn't set a limit on burgers per month for you.
No, unless I vote for it to do so. As a European whose not afraid of the term "social democracy" I don't believe the state is necessarily some "other", an "enemy", etc.
It can be that but it can also be a mediator for things people want in aggregate and vote to make sure they happen.
So, if we wish we had less fast food, we can very much vote to e.g. heavily tax those burger joints. Especially when they knowingly peddle poison for our health...
In any case it should mandate that other foods are also made available at the school canteen. Which is what it does here.
You heavily tax burger joints and then suddenly some homeless or very poor person becomes more hungry, taco business blossoms, and some other restaurants with poor quality food become more common because there's unfulfilled demand for cheap food. Society is a very complex system and it's hard to make it stable if it's not self-regulating. You can do a lot of harm having the best intentions in mind.
Even with perfect, uncorrupted, most well meaning, very intelligent and highly educated government (hah), just the amount of information about all different complicated cases, latency of it becoming available to it, time needed to process it and implement necessary changes makes it very hard to provide sensible regulation in today's very quickly changing word.
I'm not even going full Friedman here, I see what you mean, I just don't think this approach works well on the long run.
Instead of taxing burger joints, maybe include more education about balancing healthy diet in place of shellfish classification in the school.
But if you want to move forward, you must let people who make good choices be rewarded and those who make bad choices be punished. That's why you give them access to libraries, fast food joints and alcohol. And any site on the Internet they want to visit. If you force your wisest part of society to act with what you decided is best for the majority, they will flee the country or just die there without fully exploring their potential.
Well, the government in this case is not deciding what the people should watch. They're deciding that they should not just be offered to watch stuff that comes 99.9% from one country, but that they should also have the chance (not the obligation) to watch their own content.
If the tables were turned and Americans suddenly had 99% e.g. EU content in their TV programming and online video services, there would be riots.
While Europeans watch tons of American movies, the US watches a tiny number of EU movies (and even those found tiny audiences). If it wasn't for anime (which is still a niche when it comes to mainstream audiences anyway) what Americans consume in foreign films would be a statistical error.
>Instead of taxing burger joints, maybe include more education about balancing healthy diet in place of shellfish classification in the school.
That doesn't have a chance with ads that hits people directly on evolutionary irrational parts of the brain -- or the abundance of fats, sugar, salt, and other substances in unheard of amounts (historically speaking) that directly create craving and addiction. Trying to get a kid to respond to healthy foods when they see a burger ad and taste a burger is like trying to talk logic to someone that tried a first hit of heroin.
Almost any substance can be abused though. Where would you draw the line? Should we ban (or put more tax) on candies? Soft drinks? Salt? Carbohydrates?*
Personally I probably draw the line quite far from you, I think many drugs could be legal and it wouldn't shatter society, maybe it could even improve it. But that's disagreement about the line.
My general point is that even if we would agree that people should watch more EU content, then forcing it on them is like when you have some complex algorithm (like in these coding contests), and some test cases fail. And instead of trying to rethink the algorithm, you add a few IFs, to make those test cases green. You can find examples of workarounds that would have the opposite effect (like netflix providing less content so that % matches) that people came up in minutes after reading about it. And in case of legislation it's much harder to get rid of those unnecessary IFs later on, than it is to add them. Anybody who's trying to innovate then has to navigate around them. Law is already so complex that everyday citizen can just hope he doesn't break any. He cannot be sure, because it gets created faster than you can read and understand it, even if you would make that your only hobby.
It's like with cookies in the browser, yes I don't like tracking. But having to click a banner that I accept cookies on every website is not helping anybody.
May I ask you a few quick questions on how you see that happening? There's no email in your profile, mine is marius@booxia.com
Appreciate your thoughts!
Sure, fire away here too, I'll try to answer as best as I think it.
(Also in what sense do you mean "how I see that happening"? Technically? Legally? UI-wise?)
Say one is in a bubble of Hollywood action/romance movies, or NY Times bestsellers. When this person hears about something different from somebody else, he thinks Meh. What/how would they need to be introduced to a new movie/book that is outside their culture, but several people thought it was good?
Any other thoughts? Thanks :)
- Leverage the hits: e.g. Joe Nesbo has had his books made into major movies, Uberto Eco is famous worldwide, European TV series have been remade for the US market (e.g. Forbrydelsen -> The Killing), people know Fry and Laurie, and so on. One could promote those works at the first level, point to the originals, and then expand the recommendations of other works by the same authors, and then of similar authors and directors.
- Hijack on the popularity of certain themes in general (even Hollywood-inspired) culture. E.g. the recent remake of "Murder on the Orient Express" (not the best example popularity-wise, but will do for now), could be leveraged to promote works by Agatha Christi(and expand to more European crime fiction writers).
- Build the recommendation engine with a knowledge of mainstream/US/best-selling content as well -- not to promote it, but to let someone say e.g. "I enjoy John Grisham, what EU stuff should I read" and have the system recommended the relevant authors. Or "I enjoy this and this mainstream US comic" and they get a recommendation for some French graphic novel, for example.
- Excerpts and quotes from the works could be used in campaigns in places like Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, etc to hook people in.
- It could start by building critical mass by appealing to and connecting the European and american more intellectual audiences who already consume these works in some kind of social media for smarties.
- Play into the "hipster" aspect of it, e.g. embrace smart/multi-cultural/open ended, as something cool to be (in an advertising perspective).
- Have content made by featured authors and directors directly for the website,
Some ideas from the top of my head
Note we're in heavy development and research. Any feedback is welcome!
An Even Worse Thing is when we allow a super-governmental organisation to dictate what they deem to be acceptable level of non-culture to be forced upon us.
Yeah, globalism sucks, and preserving your own culture is generally a good thing, especially in a day and age where Americana is encroaching so heavily on every aspect of life. But this is not the way to do it.
> Especially since there are tens of different cultures and perspectives within the EU to represent.
These can be added, or fail to be added, to streaming services, on their own merit. Have you ever seen films from your own country? I, as a Dutchman have, and I can say that most of them suck and there's a very good reason you don't see them on stuff like Netflix.
This also seems like a recursive problem. US/Hollywood have huge marketing power, thanks to this, they can ensure that the movie they produce should make a decent profit, they can then invest more money to make better production.
On the other end, local european production don't have that marketing power, most "local" movie will fly under the radar, whatever they quality might be. They sometime make it to the box office in their country but there is just not enough interest to adapt it for other country. Due to this, it's also normal that local production tend to have less production quality.
But if you look, a lot of actor, director, etc, involved in hollywood production come from other countries. So there is talent everywhere in the world, it's mostly a money problem.
If this protectionism result in more diversity in movies, it might be a good thing.
Also, let's be honest, it shouldn't be that hard for Netflix&co to comply. They will just buy the rights to a shitload of shitty TV-movies that nobody wants and be done with it. It's already what they do in France, you would be surprised by how much crap that you never heard about is produced.
No, it's a problem of target audience. If you produce films for a Dutch audience, you have two options: either appeal to a sense of Dutch pride or history, or go for something so generic that a decent swath of the population will like it; otherwise you won't have enough of an audience to make a profit. This is what they do, so Dutch films are generally about about our navy in the 16th to 18th century, about WWII, a romcom or some adaptation of a Dutch Children's book. You cannot locally produce a film about something which lies outside of the realm of interest of most Dutch people; Hollywood can, since they have a larger audience, and therefore do have the ability to target niche markets.
> On the other end, local european production don't have that marketing power, most "local" movie will fly under the radar, whatever they quality might be.
There's more than enough marketing power; you don't need to market these films outside the country they're produced in, so you can keep the marketing campaign fairly lean and targeted.
> Also, let's be honest, it shouldn't be that hard for Netflix&co to comply.
My stance is not on how hard it is or is not to comply, it's about the audacity of governments to demand this in the first place.
Well, EU has 400 million people. One can very well create a movie that appeals to EU audiences. We have lots of shared sensibility and modern problems and history (and it doesn't have to be BS like "16th century dutch navy" or "17th century french villagers").
Movies like Blow Up or Dolce Vita or For a Fistful of Dollars etc where shown successfully all over Europe at one time (and we still have films by people like Lars Von Trier, Almodovar, and so on).
Just because you make something that has a Dutch or Swedish or French etc sensibility, it doesn't mean it can't have pan-European (or even global) appeal. Trainspotting is as British as it gets, for example, but hit Europe big, as did La Haine, La vita e bella, Amelie, and others.
Besides, not all movies have to be blockbusters and multi 100 million dollar productions. Even from the US, I'd rather have the chance to watch some Hal Hartley or Jarmusch, or Cronneburg, that barely pushed 5-10 million dollars in the box office than the nth repeatitive formulaic shit from Hollywood.
India never had that American influence problem because it's a much more insular culture, and had many illiterate people in the near past, who wanted to just relax with a movie that shows people in their likeness and plays some nice local songs. Their average popular movies are even more formulaic and explosion/romance driven than Americans. They're also quite large. This created and maintains a stronghold against foreign movies. African countries have also managed the same feat (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nollywood ) and for much of the same reasons.
>European countries would just rather take the easier route and bully companies into trying to force the matter instead of creating conditions that would allow it to happen naturally
In Europe we don't consider companies "people", so we don't believe in "bullying" them. Seems that some cultures care for companies and their profits more than they care for culture and people.
This is a pretty ridiculous and off-the-mark assertion about both the nature of Bollywood cinema and its popularity within India.
> In Europe we don't consider companies "people".
Also completely wrong. Corporations retain the rights of the persons that comprise them, both in the US and in Europe. In some European countries, this is literally written into the constitution.
I welcome a fact-based counter-argument.
What is exactly ridiculous? That India had many illiterate people in the past? India is at 72%, below Bangladesh, and slightly above Rwanda and Yemen, far below all western countries. And that's the median, there are provinces like Bihar with sub 65% literacy (of ~100 million people). And that's today. In decades past it was worse.
Or that most Bollywood movies are song-and-dance simplistic affairs? Let me quote Wikipedia on the lemma Bollywood:
"Bollywood films are mostly musicals and are expected to contain catchy music in the form of song-and-dance numbers woven into the script. A film's success often depends on the quality of such musical numbers. (...) Indian audiences expect full value for their money, with a good entertainer generally referred to as paisa vasool, (literally, "money's worth"). Songs and dances, love triangles, comedy and dare-devil thrills are all mixed up in a three-hour extravaganza with an intermission. "
>Also completely wrong. Corporations retain the rights of the persons that comprise them, both in the US and in Europe. In some European countries, this is literally written into the constitution.
This is not about retaining some rights. This is about having the rights of natural persons. Referring to this:
Yes, this is about retaining the rights. That's exactly why corporations have rights of personality, both in the US and in Europe. It's not some unique facet of US law; it's literally written into the constitution in multiple European countries.
> I welcome a fact-based counter-argument
I'm not going to engage on this, because it's clear you're not particularly familiar with the topic at hand either. Claiming that illiteracy in India is somehow the reason that Bollywood has been successful despite Western influence is the sort of argument that no historian would actually make - and if they did, they would certainly provide more evidence than naively citing the literacy rate and literally no evidence and analysis linking literacy to cultural influence in cinema.
Between this and other comment threads, it's also clear that you're not interested in having a good faith discussion, because instead you're spending your time listing Orientalist tropes.
This is what people call a discussion, where they exchange arguments. I don't throw pre-digested ready-made conclusions at the other and call it a day. If you're interested in what historians say on the matter, go read them.
I gave my argument, and pointers to any raw facts used in it (e.g. literacy rates). You can evaluate it on its own merits, or leave it.
I, furthermore, have witnessed the connection with poverty/illiteracy and own-language song-and-dance movies from my own country, which for a large span until the '70s had a similar film industry, and for very similar reasons (and I have read local academics and cultural workers come to the same conclusions). But I don't just spew ready-made conclusions when it comes to soft sciences (as if they were physics), I prefer to process things with my own arguments.
In any case, here's another link between illiteracy and Bollywood:
https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2012/02/22/let-a-billion...
Only if what that "super-governmental organisation" dictates something against the wish of the people. I'm not a huge EU commission fan myself, but I surely do. And I'd bet at least the French, for one, are equally delighted with this (and I'd say Italians as well).
Unlike Americans who leave it all to the invisible hands of the market, and its "free" movements (easily distorted by all kinds of monopolies, power imbalances, private interests, foul play, cartels, and such), many Europeans (including me) believe in deciding as societies, and forcing our decision onto the corporations peddling their stuff.
And since you propose people to "vote with their wallet", so to speak, for that to happen people must have the option to do so, e.g. a variety to choose from. With these laws such services will be forced to give European people the option to watch EU content as well.
>I, as a Dutchman have, and I can say that most of them suck and there's a very good reason you don't see them on stuff like Netflix.
Well, there are people in EU who are hot on US culture and think that their own cultural production "sucks". But there are also people who think that its Hollywood films that suck, have naive simplistic plots and world-views, too much spandex and explosions, and so on.
When US films didn't dominate the market, we had lots of excellent European directors that have heavily inspired US filmmakers as well, as admitted by Coppola, Tarantino, Scorsese and so on.
It didn't convince me of another world view, except that Danish movies sucks and Americans are great.
Not that I care a big time, but I'd be on board with a 10% quota, but in general I don't really like the idea either.
If there's one thing where the German TV industry equals the American one, it's being corrupt pieces of shit.
Source: German who pays about 20€ of media taxes and fees for services I don't need or want, every month.
So just the sheer lack of content relative to the US makes 30% quite a high and problematic number.
15% locally, 30% from the entirety of Europe. Maybe.
- producers try to reduce costs
- producers ignore customer demands as long as they are able to do it. In particular when the customer has no option because competitors are following the same cost-saving approach.
- customers give up and start watching second-best options, and get used to them (tragedy of the commons)
- there are synergy effects which allow producers to get away with sub optimal options: I will use my Amazon Prime account to watch videos, even if I am not entirely happy with the offer, because I am already paying for Prime for delivery.
- the world is complicated, and consumers have little time and power, while producers can spend time writing 30 pages contracts. The only way to balance power here is to associate, but citizens are quite bad at it. The EU is an association, and I am happy that they are taking into account the consumer's interests.
I wonder when will this fallacy of "the market works to fulfill the interests of the customers" die out ...
This is purely an exercise in the EU seeing that it can control foreign companies using GDPR and thinking "hey, why don't we use this to force companies to give us money".
Also:
> I wonder when will this fallacy of "the market works to fulfill the interests of the customers" die out ...
Just because it's flawed, doesn't mean it isn't mostly true. The market is far from perfect but that doesn't mean it doesn't still fulfil customer needs. It just doesn't fulfil all of them, fulfils them in an inoptimal way, and so on.
Culture is not just about satisfying demands, it's also about giving people the opportunity to stumble across things they weren't even looking for, and so enrich themselves in unexpected ways. As a teenager I had no particular desire to go looking for ancient harpsichord music, difficult jazz, sombre poetry, magnificent choral worship or even five-minute recordings of nothing but church bells ringing. But I found them just by twisting the radio dial late at night and discovering things that would never get airtime in a purely commercial setting. The fact that these things are paid for by a "tax" that many are still strongly opposed to, is something I would strongly support in a more modern media context.
All of these things always sound like a great idea when you have good people in government. However almost everyone seem to forget that bad people do get into government too.
Having governments dictate or force quotas and determining content always ends up biting the people in the long run.