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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the streams-without-borders dept.

Planned new EU laws aimed at making online content more accessible to those that subscribe to it are closer to being finalised after a deal struck on the new rules earlier this month was endorsed by representatives of national governments across the EU.

At the beginning of February, the Maltese presidency of the Council of Ministers, on behalf of EU member state governments, together with European Parliament officials, confirmed they had "reached a provisional agreement" on new rules for cross-border portability of online content services.

At the moment, online consumers are often blocked from accessing services they have already paid for when they go on holiday or on business to another EU country, sometimes as a result of licensing restrictions. These restrictions on access to content, on a geographic basis, are sometimes referred to as the practice of "geo-blocking".

Under the new rules that have been provisionally agreed on, online service providers that charge consumers in the EU to access content such as music, TV shows, films and games will be required to ensure those consumers can access that content when they are temporarily present in another EU country. Content service providers will not be able to charge extra to provide for the portability of their services under the new framework.

The new rules are expected to come into force in 2018.


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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:28PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:28PM (#469780)

    such as music, TV shows, films and games

    Geoblocking never made it to technologies like web frameworks. AFAIK.

    I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad to never see pages like "So sorry but jquery.js isn't licensed for use in Ireland" or similar.

    It would happen with weird patent, copyright, and license disputes. Probably will happen sooner or later.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:35PM (#469808)

      That's quite a leap there, calling jquery a 'framework'...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:45PM (#469785)

    I wonder how local licensing is even compatible with the open-market philosophy of the EU. Shouldn't every service that is offered in any EU country be available to all EU citizens?

    Oh, wait, I forgot the lobbyists and their money.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:36PM (#469809)

    This is the definition of micromanagement; I suppose it's the natural outcome of basing society around Civil Law, rather than something more decentralized (like Common Law).

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:41PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:41PM (#469811)

      Give Chairman Pai a few more weeks, and the US will probably start to see state-specific geo-locks. Do you think the Americans will skip on an opportunity to gouge the public, now that it was pointed out by the EU?

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:38AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:38AM (#469949)

        Give Chairman Pai a few more weeks

        You are a retard!

        the US will probably start to see state-specific geo-locks.

        Please provide supporting evidence, any utterance that such a thing could possibly be under consideration will do.

        Do you think the Hollywood liberals will skip on an opportunity to gouge the public, now that it was pointed out by the EU?

        Fixed!

        Did I tell you that you are retarded?

        • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday February 23 2017, @01:56PM

          by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 23 2017, @01:56PM (#470692) Homepage Journal

          The directors, the artists, the scriptwriters may be liberal. (I admit, this is a sterotype)

          The suits, probably not as much.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:40PM (#469810)

    ...but don't leave the EU with it, please.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday February 21 2017, @08:05PM

    by Zz9zZ (1348) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @08:05PM (#469859)

    They outsourced a ton of jobs, globalized tons of markets, the least they could do is give users the same benefits. Oh? That would hurt your profit margins because your online services are beyond ridiculously marked up? TOO BAD! If corporations can set up shop in other countries to avoid taxes, then we should be able to create our SAAS accounts from the country with the cheapest plans.

    --
    ~Tilting at windmills~
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:31AM (#469947)

    The EU is finished, the ponzi scheme is over, the entire scam will implode within the next year!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:35AM (#469948)

      Yes, and Trump will make America great again.