freitasm: So many quotes.

So many lawyers.

freitasm: So many quotes.

I'll quote that.

charliebrownnz:

 

But that Auckland store would not be able to exclude the hamilton client when they walk in that auckland store to buy that DVD which is analogous to what rights holders are trying to do. The internet has no boundaries and to try and enforce it is unethical and stupid. Supermarkets are not allowed to stop people from walking into their shop based on the address they live in.

 

charliebrownnz:

 

As I said - it wouldn't be acceptable for a supermarket to charge extra to out of towners, and its not acceptable for content providers to do the same. 

 

You keep using the analogy of retail supermarkets but there is too little congruence with geographically restricted subscriptions for digital media. You'll notice that people aren't even engaging with the analogy because it is so irrelevant.

The supermarket business model provides no good reason to restrict customers geographically whereas digital media subscription services do have good reasons for doing so. Supermarkets usually have more than one supplier wanting to sell them the same or similar products. The supermarkets have generally have more power in the relationship with their suppliers. It is different with digital media because the products are generally unique. Highly differentiated products means that streaming services cannot swap for a similar product from another supplier so the suppliers have more power in the relationship. That's why it is no surprise that the suppliers are pressuring Netflix to enforce geographical restrictions.

Supermarkets are allowed to restrict custom provided they don't break the law. They could do this geographically but to do so they would probably breach privacy regulations because customers who had not provided their address for that purpose. I can't think of a good reason why they would want to but maybe you can. A better example would be a business that has geographical restrictions built into their supply contracts, e.g. franchising. Then we might be able to relate to your argument because geographic restrictions are no longer nonsensical.

Hammerer:

 

Highly differentiated products means that streaming services cannot swap for a similar product from another supplier so the suppliers have more power in the relationship.

 

I think the word you're looking for is 'fungible.' Heinz, Watties and Pams baked beans are fungible because any one is a perfectly acceptable/nearly indistinguishable replacement for the other. Star Trek and Star Wars are not fungible.

Also Heinz and Watties are the same company in NZ anyway. Both really not great.

I think this whole argument is dancing on the head of the wrong pin. Geographical distribution of digital content, and enforcement by geoblocking, is ultimately nothing more than greed (or 'profit maximisation' if you prefer). Yes, the owners of the content have every right to be greedy. And the consumers of the content have an equal right to respond in kind, either by refusing to purchase the content at all, or by finding backdoors to circumvent the greed mechanism. There is no legal obligation to buy, or to buy from any particular source. The right of sellers to sell is not enshrined in law. The only right they have is to put their product out there and hope someone will want to buy it.

The 'free' market works both ways. At the moment, sellers are clamouring for a globalised market free from discriminatory tariffs and other trade barriers. Yet they want to impose a non-global market segmented by region on their customers so they can sell the same thing over and over again, artificially inflating their profits. Well, they can't have it both ways. Either there is a global market for everyone, or there isn't. The only ethical obligation on the consumer is to pay for the product somewhere. There is no law that guarantees the seller's right to make a profit. That is what the market is for.

There is also the question of choice. In the current situation, a great deal of content that is freely available overseas, is not available in New Zealand at all. Consumers here are at  the mercy of local providers who decide for everyone what they are allowed to view. This is hardly a fair or reasonable situation. As a consumer, I demand the right to purchase any content available anywhere. That is what a free market is. 

Just as sellers have the right to be greedy, so do buyers have the right to vote with their feet. We are perfectly entitled to compare offerings and prices, and go where the best deal is. That is the very essence of a 'free' market. We do not have the right to pay nothing and torrent content illegally, but that is what will happen if geo-unblocking is made impossible. The music industry learned this lesson. Now it is the turn of Hollywood.

Rikkitic:

 

I think this whole argument is dancing on the head of the wrong pin. Geographical distribution of digital content, and enforcement by geoblocking, is ultimately nothing more than greed (or 'profit maximisation' if you prefer). Yes, the owners of the content have every right to be greedy. And the consumers of the content have an equal right to respond in kind, either by refusing to purchase the content at all, or by finding backdoors to circumvent the greed mechanism. There is no legal obligation to buy, or to buy from any particular source. The right of sellers to sell is not enshrined in law. The only right they have is to put their product out there and hope someone will want to buy it.

 

The 'free' market works both ways. At the moment, sellers are clamouring for a globalised market free from discriminatory tariffs and other trade barriers. Yet they want to impose a non-global market segmented by region on their customers so they can sell the same thing over and over again, artificially inflating their profits. Well, they can't have it both ways. Either there is a global market for everyone, or there isn't. The only ethical obligation on the consumer is to pay for the product somewhere. There is no law that guarantees the seller's right to make a profit. That is what the market is for.

 

There is also the question of choice. In the current situation, a great deal of content that is freely available overseas, is not available in New Zealand at all. Consumers here are at  the mercy of local providers who decide for everyone what they are allowed to view. This is hardly a fair or reasonable situation. As a consumer, I demand the right to purchase any content available anywhere. That is what a free market is. 

 

Just as sellers have the right to be greedy, so do buyers have the right to vote with their feet. We are perfectly entitled to compare offerings and prices, and go where the best deal is. That is the very essence of a 'free' market. We do not have the right to pay nothing and torrent content illegally, but that is what will happen if geo-unblocking is made impossible. The music industry learned this lesson. Now it is the turn of Hollywood.

 

Technically there appears to be no "free market", at least not yet: government regulations support geographical restrictions on content distribution; price negotiation is clearly not balanced between buyer and seller; and prices are not really changing with supply and demand.

Nor are the "sellers" an amorphous mass who "want it both ways". There are clear distinctions between content providers and distribution services so it is not helpful to put them in the same basket. That is why we have sellers who want geographical restrictions and sellers who don't. The two positions exist because the sellers are not the same.

By the sounds of it, most of us don't actually want a free market in the traditional understanding of that term. We want a "free" market with extremely low prices, partly because we resent profits being made by content providers and distributors, but also because we think it is our right. That's why most people pay nothing for their streamed or downloaded music and look to pay nothing for video too. A free market is unlikely to become a reality at such low prices.

Good points but just as there are different sellers so are there different consumers. Maybe some of the younger among us think everything should be free but I believe most of us are prepared to pay a fair price for content if we can get it.  If Netflix or any other service offers the same content here as elsewhere, I'm sure most people would be happy to pay for it here. Like many, I'm a big fan of the BBC and would be glad to pay for that if I could. Hopefully if the British authorities restrict it only to license holders, they will do the right thing and offer that license to the rest of the world as well.

I think the supermarket analogy is very relevant - but not in the way any of you are actually discussing.

Food products do have geographic restrictions - companies such as Nestle sell products globally, with many made in only a small number of countries. Products a for different markets have different recipes, tastes and different labeling requirements in different markets. All of these are ultimately geographic restrictions to restrict product to specific markets. Here in NZ we're one of a small number of countries in the world where parallel importing is legal, so we've been exposed to many such products. Some companies do a good job of this (such as labeling products to comply with FSANZ requirements) and some do a poor job.

So where does this lead?

A certain supermarket chain in NZ did start to import some products from their parent in Australia to test the water, bypassing the local distributor of products. I won't go into naming brands or products here but it's safe to say a few big brands were involved. The attitude was simply that they could source stock cheaper in AU than they could in NZ, so they'd simply import it to force the local distributor to cut prices. Meanwhile they're expecting the NZ distributor to still fund promotions, merchandising and so on.

The supermarket business is different to TV - you're selling physical goods that can't be delivered digitally, but at the end of the day the geographic distribution models are similar. I'm all for open markets and free trade and this is one of the reasons I fundamentally refuse to buy fair trade products as it's nothing but a subsidy to fund growers who continue to flood markets.

charliebrownnz:But that Auckland store would not be able to exclude the hamilton client when they walk in that auckland store to buy that DVD which is analogous to what rights holders are trying to do. The internet has no boundaries and to try and enforce it is unethical and stupid. Supermarkets are not allowed to stop people from walking into their shop based on the address they live in.

 

 

 

But the internet does have boundaries. Netflix by way of the terms of its content purchases, has a world of boundaries. So do MANY others. 

AKL and Hamilton customers are within the same boundary.

Its not about Netflix and you. Its about the producers of the content, and who they sell it to over many countries, to the many many Netflix's that are out there in many countries, all with their own competition in the SVOD provider market.

Lets remove geo restrictions. Now Netflix'x content is in every Netflix library. What if Hulu or the Lighboxes of the world want it? If no, as this series is Netflix only, I guess the fragmentation will increase, so Netflix will be great, so will Hulu, and Lightboxes, as they all have lots of content but its all different. Content will cost netflix more as the revenues garnered from the other countries SVOD ho had the rights isn't now received. So Netflix now costs NZ$30. But you need Hulu NZ Lightbox NZ, Quickflix NZ as the world content is spread out. 

Or, every SVOD can buy all the rights, they will be cheap, as the content has been sold to many more providers. 

sbiddle:

 

I think the supermarket analogy is very relevant - but not in the way any of you are actually discussing.

 

Food products do have geographic restrictions - companies such as Nestle sell products globally, with many made in only a small number of countries. Products a for different markets have different recipes, tastes and different labeling requirements in different markets. All of these are ultimately geographic restrictions to restrict product to specific markets. Here in NZ we're one of a small number of countries in the world where parallel importing is legal, so we've been exposed to many such products. Some companies do a good job of this (such as labeling products to comply with FSANZ requirements) and some do a poor job.

 

So where does this lead?

 

A certain supermarket chain in NZ did start to import some products from their parent in Australia to test the water, bypassing the local distributor of products. I won't go into naming brands or products here but it's safe to say a few big brands were involved. The attitude was simply that they could source stock cheaper in AU than they could in NZ, so they'd simply import it to force the local distributor to cut prices. Meanwhile they're expecting the NZ distributor to still fund promotions, merchandising and so on.

 

The supermarket business is different to TV - you're selling physical goods that can't be delivered digitally, but at the end of the day the geographic distribution models are similar. I'm all for open markets and free trade and this is one of the reasons I fundamentally refuse to buy fair trade products as it's nothing but a subsidy to fund growers who continue to flood markets.

 

 

 

The geographic distribution models are similar in the context of a checkout in a supermarket charging extra to the person that lives in a town down the road solely because they live in a different address. No extra costs are incurred by selling to the person down the road, its just they charge more because they can. The context you are referring to is a case where geographic borders matter due to a tangible cost of physically moving a product - content has no such cost.

In fact, the supermarket analogy would be more accurate if you have separate checkout lanes in a physical store for "out of towners" - in these lanes a sub-contractor clips the ticket, and they only sell apples and oranges (of which you can't buy only one), if you want bananas you have to go through another check-out lane and buy off another sub-contractor who bundles in and charges for toiletries as well. And if you want bagels you are out of luck as none of the sub-contractors stock them (even though the store does). Sometimes the store won't contain the product you want, however it provides most, and it provides more products than the sum of all the sub-contractors.

The internet does not have borders, it is a global market, and trying to introduce geographic borders on the internet is as absurd as a supermarket store charging more for people that walk in the store based on the street they live on.

It's not uncommon for tourist attractions to have different (lower) prices for locals.

Same diff?

Rikkitic:

 

I think this whole argument is dancing on the head of the wrong pin. Geographical distribution of digital content, and enforcement by geoblocking, is ultimately nothing more than greed (or 'profit maximisation' if you prefer). Yes, the owners of the content have every right to be greedy. And the consumers of the content have an equal right to respond in kind, either by refusing to purchase the content at all, or by finding backdoors to circumvent the greed mechanism. There is no legal obligation to buy, or to buy from any particular source. The right of sellers to sell is not enshrined in law. The only right they have is to put their product out there and hope someone will want to buy it.

 

The 'free' market works both ways. At the moment, sellers are clamouring for a globalised market free from discriminatory tariffs and other trade barriers. Yet they want to impose a non-global market segmented by region on their customers so they can sell the same thing over and over again, artificially inflating their profits. Well, they can't have it both ways. Either there is a global market for everyone, or there isn't. The only ethical obligation on the consumer is to pay for the product somewhere. There is no law that guarantees the seller's right to make a profit. That is what the market is for.

 

There is also the question of choice. In the current situation, a great deal of content that is freely available overseas, is not available in New Zealand at all. Consumers here are at  the mercy of local providers who decide for everyone what they are allowed to view. This is hardly a fair or reasonable situation. As a consumer, I demand the right to purchase any content available anywhere. That is what a free market is. 

 

Just as sellers have the right to be greedy, so do buyers have the right to vote with their feet. We are perfectly entitled to compare offerings and prices, and go where the best deal is. That is the very essence of a 'free' market. We do not have the right to pay nothing and torrent content illegally, but that is what will happen if geo-unblocking is made impossible. The music industry learned this lesson. Now it is the turn of Hollywood.

 

 

 

Greedy? Check Netflix earnings results. Their recent profit is a minuscule % of the costs they bear, which are clearly mainly content costs. If they buy up every countries rights, they will fold. If they did that and doubled the sub, then they will be classed as greedy. To be greedy you need to be tuning a cash cow. Netflix isn't that. 

charliebrownnz:

 

sbiddle:

 

I think the supermarket analogy is very relevant - but not in the way any of you are actually discussing.

 

Food products do have geographic restrictions - companies such as Nestle sell products globally, with many made in only a small number of countries. Products a for different markets have different recipes, tastes and different labeling requirements in different markets. All of these are ultimately geographic restrictions to restrict product to specific markets. Here in NZ we're one of a small number of countries in the world where parallel importing is legal, so we've been exposed to many such products. Some companies do a good job of this (such as labeling products to comply with FSANZ requirements) and some do a poor job.

 

So where does this lead?

 

A certain supermarket chain in NZ did start to import some products from their parent in Australia to test the water, bypassing the local distributor of products. I won't go into naming brands or products here but it's safe to say a few big brands were involved. The attitude was simply that they could source stock cheaper in AU than they could in NZ, so they'd simply import it to force the local distributor to cut prices. Meanwhile they're expecting the NZ distributor to still fund promotions, merchandising and so on.

 

The supermarket business is different to TV - you're selling physical goods that can't be delivered digitally, but at the end of the day the geographic distribution models are similar. I'm all for open markets and free trade and this is one of the reasons I fundamentally refuse to buy fair trade products as it's nothing but a subsidy to fund growers who continue to flood markets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The geographic distribution models are similar in the context of a checkout in a supermarket charging extra to the person that lives in a town down the road solely because they live in a different address. No extra costs are incurred by selling to the person down the road, its just they charge more because they can. The context you are referring to is a case where geographic borders matter due to a tangible cost of physically moving a product - content has no such cost.

 

In fact, the supermarket analogy would be more accurate if you have separate checkout lanes in a physical store for "out of towners" - in these lanes a sub-contractor clips the ticket, and they only sell apples and oranges (of which you can't buy only one), if you want bananas you have to go through another check-out lane and buy off another sub-contractor who bundles in and charges for toiletries as well. And if you want bagels you are out of luck as none of the sub-contractors stock them (even though the store does). Sometimes the store won't contain the product you want, however it provides most, and it provides more products than the sum of all the sub-contractors.

 

The internet does not have borders, it is a global market, and trying to introduce geographic borders on the internet is as absurd as a supermarket store charging more for people that walk in the store based on the street they live on.

 

Prices in AKL are the sane for Auckland's and Hamiltonians shopping there. Anyone shopping in Hamilton or some teeny backwater will have different prices as there are different costs.

Internet does have a border. Series sells to NF US, but in NZ someone else bought it, as they did in Sweden and Kazakstan. But you don't want Netflix t pay the extra for those rights for you, you want to bypass it for free. Maybe you should petition to ban anyone from buys content except Netflix. But as NF makes a teeny % of net profit at the moment, expect to pay a lot more as you want NF content for free, but it costs, as at the moment, what you cannot watch on NF NZ, someone else bought it, or there is a deal with another for a near future release. But you want it now and for free.

freitasm:

 

Please, for the love of $deity do not use Hola. You rather have your connection compromised than let it go?

 

So what's wrong with hola? Is it a service swindling their customers globally? Or just poor security?