I was attempting to build a small collection of decent stuff and didn't expect that I would have to move country, much less that my library decided to stay behind. So pissed off.
Just like with Apps it is the developers and not Apple. Developers can check the “worldwide” box and be done with it. But for various reasons sometimes you have to exclude a country. I’ve been in a position where legal asked to not publish a specific app in some countries because local laws made that app “difficult” to exist.
The EU cannot fix this.
Of course it can. Ban country-specific licensing arrangements in the EU.
Sure. I'm saying politically it's DOA.
No, they really do not. At most, they can decide "in EU" vs not.
If Apple allows anything more fine-grained, they are violating EU law.
The reason why Netflix doesn’t have a single library for the EU is because EU licensees claim rights in various countries both on the original content as well as on localization via dubbing and subtitles.
This isn’t on Netflix it would be far cheaper for them to have a single world wide license for the majority of their content rather than having to negotiate regional deals.
And not for nothing but the EU geo blocking directive explicitly does not cover audio-visual content and they’ve voted against extending it just at the beginning of this year after heavy lobbying by EU media companies especially those in sports.
So it is perfectly legal to geo block both on demand audio-visual content and live broadcasts within in the EU.
The music industry in general has a long history of being fractionalized by country and region. The laws and regulations, especially around music publishing, are literally different in almost every country around the globe, with specific PROs and CMOs collecting publishing and performance royalties country by country. You can imagine the inefficiency that creates.
That, combined with a history of distribution through physical, not digital media, creates a system that ends up being a massive web of regional licensing deals, collection webs, and opaque royalty flows that have held over to this day.
It's not a great system.
Hypothetically, what happens if the EU bans Apple's practices (at a bare minimum, the blatantly deceptive advertising letting you think you're "buying" a piece of media) and lets the effects trickle down to the other culprits?
Decide what I get to buy where? Sure, that still sucks but at least makes some marginal sense.
But why on earth should they get to confiscate stuff I’ve already paid for once I move countries?
https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/internet-services/itunes/uk/t...
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- Purchased Content will generally remain available for you to download, redownload, or otherwise access from Apple. Though it is unlikely, subsequent to your purchase, Content may be removed from the Services and become unavailable for further download or access from Apple (for instance, because Apple loses its right from the Content provider to make it available). To ensure your ability to continue enjoying Content, we encourage you to download all purchased Content to a device in your possession and to back it up.
"""
But that doesn’t mean it makes any sense economically. I’m much less likely to buy a movie (as opposed to renting it) that way, for example.
And redownloading after moving does work for some types of content (e.g. books on Amazon, I believe music for Apple etc.), so it’s really just a matter of a lack of urgency to negotiate this.
You didn’t own any content to build a collection with; you held licenses.
The content owners are the studios and they decide where to sell their content, in which legal jurisdictions and for how much.
As a license holder you don’t have rights to the content in every jurisdiction. As much as I hate to rep with folk like the MPAA if there are different laws in different areas, they can’t have a one size fits all solution.
(I sail the seven seas as my one size fits all solution because if buying isn’t owning then…)
Secondly, I already bought the thing, I don’t care that the thing is no longer sold where I happen to be standing. The rights holders already got their money.
If retail suddenly means that one side gets to renegotiate the deal, then yeah, I think we have a problem. Give me the money back.
I’m well aware how licensing content works, I just want post-purchase shenanigans to stop.
Any space on that boat?
I think many people here support that. It's the blaming of Apple that we are finding problematic.
You know the laws and want somebody to blame. I don't like it either. I would definitely support changes. I keep my collection 90% DRM free for this reason, though. Well, I suppose my DVD's aren't DRM free, but you can't make my physical player disappear by flipping a switch in Cupertino.
[Ed: Ok, I read TFA. The connection between the geo-locked apple ID's and the per-country availability & pricing isn't well explained.]
I know. As you guys do in absolutely every thread vaguely critical of Apple, without exception, no matter the topic.
e.g. Bought all eight films in the collection of a well-known series about a wizarding school. Move country. Film number 4 vanishes into thin-air. Just gone. Have to buy film again in current country.
e.g. Bought entire collection of classic British comedy about some senior governmental tomfoolery. Whole collection vanishes on move. Then about three months later reappears. Then a few weeks later disappears. Then reappears again. Then disappears.
So the laws aren't causing this, but they do need to resolve this. Licensing media might be harder than the Good Friday Agreement, but I refuse to accept that it's impossible, and consumers should just suck it up. I don't have any kind of contract with anyone but Apple, so they really should take responsibility.
I keep buying CDs at €1 or £1 each from the local secondhand-kaufhäuser or charity shop, and the house is littered with thousands of CDs and the only break-up clause I would worry about with regard to those is the one with my other half, not with who I bought them from.
This is a completely solved problem. In essence, movies and TV shows aren't any different from music in that regard. The only issue is that there hasn't been enough regulatory scrutiny regarding this when it comes to videos.
We need governments to step in, force the same system that we have for music also for video content, and slap anyone who violates the regulations with billions of dollars of fines.
I spent a few years as a nomad, and the amount of shit you have to deal with when moving country is ridiculous. It's fine if you're just on holiday and have a consistent country of residence, but actually moving country seems like a total edge case for half the services.
Spotify playlists that alter strangely from country to country. Any of the streaming services radically alter their available shows from country to country. Books that you thought you bought on Amazon suddenly disappear from your Kindle.
And, of course, the language problem. Most of the services assume that if you live in a country then you speak the major language of that country. I mean, I get it, but they know that I've set my preferences to English in their app. My browser tells them what language I prefer. I don't understand why my IP address overrules all of that.
Anyway, all of this goes away if you just pirate it all. You can get what you want, in the language you want, the format you want, and store it on your hard drive so you can play it while offline. It all just gets easier and better. It's got nothing to do with the cost - I'd happily pay for the content, as long as they actually let me own it.