From Variety:
Quotas obligating Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services operating in the European Union to dedicate at least 30% of their on-demand catalogs to local content are set to become enshrined in law soon.
Roberto Viola, head of the European Commission department that regulates communications networks, content and technology, said the new rules, which will also demand visibility and prominence of European product on streamers, are on track to be approved in December.
"We just need the final vote, but it's a mere formality," he told Variety at the Venice Film Festival.
Netflix, Amazon and other streamers will be required to fund TV series and films produced in Europe by commissioning content, acquiring it or paying into national film funds through a small surcharge added to their subscription fee, something which is already happening in Germany. Netflix tried unsuccessfully to fight the German surcharge in court.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 05 2018, @04:35AM (4 children)
Really? Oh, man, to put it in mild terms, that's unbelievable childish/naive.
Ummm.... I tend to assign a significant amount of blame to:
1. exceptionalism => the blind belief that all the world is suboptimally organized, nothing to learn from outside America, we are the best
2. the "American dreaming" as a phenomenon - it's enough to work hard and you'll get ahead, thinking may not be necessary
3. the "education" - US has bitten hard on behaviorism and won't let go, with everything it brings on the table: reward/punishment, everything that cannot be measured does not exist, etc. Which translates into the abandon of critical thinking in the majority of population - "learning to the test" and conformity is the first step. "Keep it simple, stupid", "don't fix it if it works", "the boom/bust cycle is inherent for an/the/any economy", ("home prices never go down" in the past), etc. are everyday shortcuts and nothing more complex needs to exist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday September 05 2018, @05:13AM (3 children)
We're certainly not the only people prone to that, but yes, we're truly awful on that score. In our defense, it's relatively easy to see why - isolation was our early blessing that let us grow to superpower size, and our political class has been pushing exceptionalism full bore through both the right and the left wing since before I was born.
The "education" (it's not education, just schooling) is indeed the big problem. And that system, ironically enough, is one of the very few things we imported.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 05 2018, @05:31AM (2 children)
Heh, no, unfortunately you aren't the only one.
(I'm curious what info you have about it being an import? The way I know, in regards with the "education", the thing was put forward by an American: B.F.Skinner [wikipedia.org]. Not that the nationality of that person would make any difference).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Wednesday September 05 2018, @06:09AM (1 child)
Horace Mann successfully imported the Prussian school system to Massachusetts, back about 1850 or so. He pitched it as a way to turn those unruly Catholic immigrants children into productive and well-behaved units of a vague, likely non-denominational Protestant flavor. While we had long had laws that required that children be educated, this was the first time that we had a specific school given a legal monopoly on providing that education. Minorities often resisted and in some cases the troops were deployed to enforce the law. This is when many of the features that we think of today as just being parts of "school" itself, like the rigid class rankings, the bells and class periods, were actually imported. From Prussia. This system was in vogue in Europe at the time as well, and I understand it was an influential model imitated around the world, though I don't really know the details outside the US.
At any rate, back in Massachusetts, Mr Mann and others of his class generally approved of the results and they worked to spread it to other states. Similar laws were passed, similar school systems setup, and very quickly our pre-Prussian form of schooling became effectively extinct, illegal, and to add insult to injury; smeared in the public mind as backwards.
Skinner comes along much later, comes from and presumes the Prussian system. He also takes it a bit further in terms of following the logical implications.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 05 2018, @06:14AM
Interesting, thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford