• firecat
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      411 months ago

      Valve Corporation, the monopoly of gaming was sued by EU for Geoblocking. Valve plan with 5 publishers was to raise prices and block games in other countries. Meaning Frence games would be Frence games and American games be American.

      That’s what the entertainment industry wants to do with videos and CDs.

      • sadreality
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        211 months ago

        As much of a daddy as Gabe is in gaming circles, he is fundamentally an owner of a business.

        • rhythmisaprancer
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          011 months ago

          I would think that more markets would mean more money, no? I don’t see how this could ever be good for them, but we learned in another post that Cocoon is out of print in USA but available in UK.

          --not a business owner

      • Deceptichum
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        211 months ago

        Never heard this claim before and it’s sounds counterproductive for Valve to limit the options of purchases for users.

        Can you provide something to back this up?

          • Deceptichum
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            611 months ago

            Yeah that’s what I thought. You’ve grossly exaggerated the situation.

            First off it wasn’t a plan, geo-blocking has been around for decades and was the norm long before the EU looked into it and still happens everywhere else on Earth. Valve also stopped this practice as soon as the EU ordered it to end.

            Secondly geo-blocking saves users money. Geo-blocking is what lets a person in the developing world buy a game without it costing 2 lifetimes to afford the Western price.

            The problem here is that the EU demands everyone be charged the same price, so now poorer Eastern Europeans get to pay the Western European incomes prices.

  • Sabre363
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    1511 months ago

    What’s with news posts having increasingly irrelevant thumbnails

    • NemeskiOP
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      811 months ago

      Not sure, but the alt text for that image seems to be “French drama Anatomy of a Fall relied on regional exclusivity in its financing and distribution across Europe.”

      • Sabre363
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        311 months ago

        I’m on sh.itjust.works. I don’t have a problem other posts, just the clickbaity news articles.

    • livus
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      211 months ago

      I think there was a community to post these weird thumbnail combos, but I can’t find it.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    511 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Media companies have long argued that territorial exclusivity is key to their business models and that getting rid of it would jeopardize the creative and economic sustainability of the film and TV sectors in Europe.

    Discovery, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, and Paramount joined forces with European giants Canal+, RTL, TF1, Sky, ProSiebenSat.1, Wildbunch and Leonine, representatives of major sports leagues, including England’s Premier League of soccer, Germany’s DFL and Italy’s Serie A, and distributors and exhibitor groups, including the MPA and European exhibitors organization UNIC, in a joint letter calling for the EU to reject the proposal and keep territorial exclusivity in place.

    The companies argue the result of a geo-blocking ban would be a “significant reduction of choice in content, distribution, and access options as well as a surge in prices” for consumers.

    But Europe is still largely a patchwork market of individual nation states or linguistic regions with small and mid-sized companies accounting for the vast majority of employment in the sector.

    Licensing contracts for exclusive regional or linguistic rights — for a French film in Belgium, say, or an English Premier League match in Norway — form the basis of the industry, with pricing differing according to demand.

    Companies use geo-blocking technology to prevent cross-border comparison shopping, which they fear will lead to price dumping, with the lowest-value territory dictating the licensing fee for the entire EU.


    The original article contains 589 words, the summary contains 229 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • jlow (he/him)
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    511 months ago

    Geoblocking should be banned! I know how to use (and pay for a) VPN and would pirate without any qualms if that doesn’t work but for the people that don’t know geoblocking need to go. It’s is just another thing that benefits the big corps, not the artists doing the films and series.