Why does Geo-blocking exist?

[Tim]

Sunday brought this up in her message.  

Geo-blocking, meaning that you can't access the CW website directly if you don't live in the U.S.   This poses a problem for a lot of our members, since they don't live in North America and have to rely on streaming in order to watch the latest episodes of shows such as Superman & Lois and Walker.

Now, I can understand a country with an authoritarian government, like China or Iran, doing this.    Those countries like to control what their people see and hear. 

But Australia (where Sunday lives) is a democratic country.   So why do they do this? 

I don't get it.

[BettyNewbie]

Capitalism.

How it protects licensed content

The most important function of geo-blocking technology for businesses is the ability to protect licensed and copyrighted content. Digital protection of copyrighted material is getting more and more difficult for companies to control and geo-blocking offers a viable solution to the issue. One reason it’s so important to efficiently use the most powerful technology is that it needs to restrict those who try to circumvent it. It’s one thing for the tool implemented to restrict the willing. It’s a whole different issue to block those willing to attempt to overcome the restriction.

To demonstrate the importance of this measure, picture a scenario where a company purchases the rights to screen a movie for its customers. This would allow them to screen said movie for customers in the location agreed upon during the construction of the contract. In order to prevent a contract breach, they would set up geo-blocking to keep the screenings within the allowed zone. This demonstrates, once again, how something restrictive is actually the opposite in a lot of ways (the movie couldn’t be shared without the restricting measure).

Geo-blocking is something a lot of companies should consider in the constant attempt to secure and maintain digital assets. Along with digital rights management, geo-blocking is a strong method to restrict access to and keep control of intellectual property.

If they can somehow force you to spend more $$$ or serve you more ads to watch a movie or TV show, then they will do whatever is necessary. Lots of things on YouTube are geo-blocked in the US for this exact reason. They want you to either pony up for a streaming subscription or watch it on traditional TV with tons of ads.

[Trinity]

Exactly right. All about money.

YouTube now has shows and films there to buy or rent for 2 dollars each.

I'd be fine if say for instance CW allowed internationals to watch if you paid a one time fee. But that I doubt they'd ever consider that.

[BettyNewbie]

Aug 2, 2021 18:43:16 GMT -5 Trinity said:

Exactly right. All about money.

YouTube now has shows and films there to buy or rent for 2 dollars each.

I'd be fine if say for instance CW allowed internationals to watch if you paid a one time fee. But that I doubt they'd ever consider that.

I still remember when YouTube was 100% ad-free, and you could easily find many movies and TV shows uploaded there. Not anymore.😞

[Tim]

I still remember when YouTube was 100% ad-free, and you could easily find many movies and TV shows uploaded there. Not anymore.

I'm guessing that was before Google got their paws on it. 

Trivia note:  When Yahoo! went sniffing around Dailymotion, the French Government told them to get lost.   Wish the U.S. Government had done the same for YouTube.

[Melinda Halliwell]

Like others here, it's all about money which some people especially those in poor families don't have obviously and it's not like people do this for profit or gain it's to watch shows or films they enjoy or can't see if they don't have satellite TV the same with music then although I do agree with artists when they don't get the royalties they deserve for their songs been played then.

[Squad 51]

Sometimes I'm lucky with finding free movies on Youtube (recently American Justice) but I bet the users are then responsible.

Still, I'm not happy when I get blocked, even though the whole economy is already worldwide active and then you can't watch series and/or movies from other countries just because you don't live there?!

[Tim]

I still find plenty of free movies on YouTube.  Of course, most of them are so obscure that YouTube is probably the fist time most have seen them.

[Dark Avenger]

So annoying to find so many videos blocked on Youtube.

Dailymotion is amazing to find more content that's never blocked. I managed to find some shows and films on there to watch and it's so cool.

[Melinda Halliwell]

I haven't visited Dailymotion in a while but what I have seen on there it's not as bad as YouTube in terms of what you can find then.

I'm surprised lots of celebrities who've YouTube channels haven't switched yet the videos I've seen them talking about potentially been blocked making more videos due to copyright issues even if the celebrity is reacting to their own movie or show they've been in which's crazy I think.

[Tim]

You can find a lot of Dailymotion, including episodes of Classic Star Trek and Doctor Who.   

Good luck finding those on YouTube.